HOLY CRAP! Ford's pardon of Nixon was engineered by The Family!!

[nashville_brook]

from a speech Jeffrey Sharlet gave to the Freedom From Religion Foundation:

http://ffrf.org/fttoday/2009/april/sharlet.php

In 1974, a family prayer group of Republican Congressmen and former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird helped convince President Gerald Ford that Nixon deserved not just Christian forgiveness, but also legal pardon. That story, by the way, was reported in The New York Times. Why isn’t it in the official record? Because it was reported in The Times’ religion page as a sweet little story on the power of prayer. No one paid attention to the fact that Ford was very explicit that he was going to decide on Nixon’s pardon by convening his old Family- organized prayer group that he had when in Congress.


________________


wow.

[BuyingThyme]

1. Haig convinced Ford to pardon Nixon.

But perhaps Haig was a Family member.

[Fridays Child]

2. No doubt. In fact, I would be shocked if Haig were not a member. n/t

[nashville_brook]

11. according to the 1984 US NEWS and World Report article cited below, Haig was indeed a member.

"Other members active in conservative politics include former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, former Treasury Secretary William Simon and columnist William F. Buckley."

http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/usnewsmar84.html

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. Good old Alex Haig

The dumbass who thought he'd start his own little coup when Poppy arranged for his business partner's kid to shoot Reagan.


"I'm in control here now!"

[nashville_brook]

19. these are BAD people who see their evilness as next to godliness.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5249775


there's real good stuff in this old DU thread.

[myrna minx]

20. .

[Mari333]

3. forgive n forget eh? wonder if thats why Obama admin isnt going after Bush for war crimes

good old boys network and all.

[nashville_brook]

9. The Handmaid's Tale is a great description of this "old boys' network."

[polichick]

4. Is The Family also behind the reluctance on the part of Congress and the Pres...

...to hold Bush & Co. accountable??

[nashville_brook]

6. i would love to know what exactly IS behind the weird 180s Obama has taken...

maybe this is a place to start looking.

I read the Sharlet Harper's article back in 2003 -- "Jesus Plus Nothing" -- and remember thinking this is something to watch. I've read repeatedly that Hillary Clinton is a member. I wonder if that's true.

[polichick]

8. I've read that Hillary participates in a DC Bible Circle - could be this group. nt

[BuyingThyme]

10. Yes.

There were posts here about Hillary's Family ties.

[elleng]

42. It IS this group.

Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, The Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6046260

[polichick]

47. Good thing she's not prez - but with Obama elevating assholes like Warren...

...who knows what he thinks of this stuff.

[sandnsea]

14. He hasn't taken any 180s

90% of what he's doing is exactly what he said he'd do. On a very few issues, like releasing torture pictures, it's likely that being responsible for the backlash puts a different perspective on choices. Most of what people are complaining about with Obama - he never said he was going to do in the first place. He never said he was going to implement single payer, withdraw from Iraq instantly, withdraw from Afghanistan at all, prosecute Bush, Cheney, etc., sign an Executive Order on DOMA or DADT, etc. He always said he was going to reach out to the religious community and try to build bridges where there is agreement instead of always focusing on the areas of permanent disagreement. That doesn't make him one of these religious nutballs, (who are some of the same people who founded the John Birch Society, btw, they go back decades). It simply means he recognizes that they're here and have to be dealt with.

[nashville_brook]

17. one word: transparency.

[sandnsea]

25. And?

What, people expected there to no longer be classified info?? Most of what people are in a tizz about has proven to either be completely false or horribly distorted.

[nashville_brook]

29. "The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable, and...

the way to make government accountable is to make it transparent."

This was a FOUNDATIONAL statement. This was his first announcement as president -- one that was to be a guiding principle.

Since then we have seen no moves toward accountability. No moves towards transparency. Quite the opposite. It makes you wonder what got between him and his principles.

[sandnsea]

31. Here

And once again, exactly precisely what the man said during the campaign. The justice dept would go where the investigation leads. Just because people like you wanted an instantaneous round-up of all things Bush doesn't mean that would have been true accountability. And just because the press repeats political fodder instead of what people actually say doesn't mean the press gets it right either.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/206300

[goclark]

40. Absolutely

Well said

[global1]

33. Franken Is The Newest Member Of The D.C. Elite As The New Senator From MN......

lets watch him closely and see if he changes his tune now that he's in D.C. Let's see if he gets inducted into the Family.

Also - it's time to start delving into the actions of these lawmakers that live in this C-Street house. We already seen what Ensign & Sanford were up to. Now we need to give a good look at the others that live in this house and see what kind of lives they live. Perhaps they got in under the radar before - but now they've been outed and should be scrutinized. I wonder what kind of voting record these guys have up on the Hill? Is there a pattern in their support or lack of support for the various bills that flow through Congress? I'm also wondering who some of the alumni are that lived in this house during previous Congresses? We're in the 111th Congress now. Who was part of this family in the 110th, 109th, 108th.... and how did they vote? Is this house Co-Ed? Do/Did women lawmakers live there as well?

This group sounds really creepy. I wonder what kind of influence patterns will be seen as to how this group has shaped this country?

It's time for some real investigative reporting.

[undeterred]

36. Do they let Jews in?

[nashville_brook]

39. i would think that'd be a "no."

[hootinholler]

34. Could very well be.

:shrug:

-Hoot

[sandnsea]

5. US News "Elite Religious Groups" From 1984 (oddly enough)

INSIDE LOOK AT THOSE ELITE RELIGIOUS GROUPS

Their ranks are small, but a handful of key societies count as members some of the most influential Americans.

While the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority draws most of the public attention, other religious groups are quietly trying to influence the nation's elite.

Their names are unfamiliar to most Americans - the Knights of Malta, Opus Dei, Moral Re-Armament, the Christian Reconstructionists. Yet their principles, which include strict adherence to Christian values, are the guiding force in the lives of some of the most powerful people in the U.S.

Despite coming from different faiths, members share a common belief that a small number of dedicated people can indeed change the world. Still, these groups aren't without their detractors.

Outsiders often question the recruiting methods and veil of secrecy surrounding some of these organizations. Critics contend, too, that these societies are as much bastions of conservative politics as they are religious in nature.

http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/usnewsmar84.html

[nashville_brook]

7. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Casey was a member according to that.

[billyoc]

12. Damn! Why couldn't they have joined the other church!

[nashville_brook]

15. blahahahhhAAA!

eggsellent.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

16. Well, that was blood-curdling -

Nice story about the general at the Air Force Academy.

Ah, we do reward ignorance, do we not?

We're screwed.............................

[nashville_brook]

18. yeah, I stumbled on that and had read the whole thing before I realized how revolted i felt.

i might have to go shower.

[nashville_brook]

21. Barbara Ehrenreich: HIllary's Nasty Pastorate -- Huff Post March 18, 2008

Hillary's Nasty Pastorate

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/hillarys-nasty-pastorate_b_92361.html
Posted March 19, 2008 | 01:11 PM (EST)


There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the "Fellowship," aka The Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.

Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs, and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners -- alone.

The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes -- knitting together international networks of rightwing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper's in 2003:

During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.

At the heart of the Family's American branch is a collection of powerful rightwing 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. And, at the Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already-powerful.

Clinton fell in with the Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, the Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

Furthermore, the Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including new age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal Rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.

Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the underappreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define the Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worship Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as the Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power -- cultivating it, building it, and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."

Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the Trinity Unity Church of Christ. Now it's up to Clinton to explain -- or, better yet, renounce -- her longstanding connection with the fascist-leaning Family.

[MinM]

22. IMO Nixon gets credit for not joining "the Family"

Chucky Colson thought it would help to salvage Tricky Dick's Legacy. But Nixon, to his credit, did not take the politically expedient and cynical route (this time).

BTW I'm not sure how much "the Family" had to twist Ford's arm. From the Warren Commission to Watergate, Gerald Ford's main function in life seems to have been that of a GOPolitical fixer.

[nashville_brook]

24. the reason why The Family is in the news now is b/c of their "coniglione" role

i never thought much of Ford one way or the other. Milquetoast. A perfect stealth personality.

[sandnsea]

26. Nixon was a Prescott Bush protege

He didn't need any Family for his power. Of course, being involved with the power of the Bushies is likely what drove his paranoia in the end.

[Sebastian Doyle]

28. I think Nixon probably had a genuine inner conflict

Between the Quaker values he was raised with, and the Bush Crime Family anti-values of his entire political career beginning in 1946. His roots didn't keep him from bombing Cambodia, but at least they kept him out of this dominionist wackjob "Family" cult.

[nashville_brook]

23. found the Mother Jones article on Hillary's "Family Ties":

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics

:wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:


When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

Clinton declined our requests for an interview about her faith, but in Living History, she describes her first encounter with Fellowship leader Doug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars, the Fellowship's majestic estate on the Potomac. Coe, she writes, "is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

[nashville_brook]

27. more incredibly weird shit about David Coe and his admiration for Hitler:

On Doug Coe:“A covenant,” Doug answered. The congressman half-smiled, as if caught between confessing his ignorance and pretending he knew what Doug was talking about. “Like the Mafia,” Doug clarified. “Look at the strength of their bonds.” He made a fist and held it before Tiahrt's face. Tiahrt nodded, squinting. “See, for them it's honor,” Doug said. “For us, it's Jesus.” Coe listed other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their “brothers”: “Look at Hitler,” he said. “Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden.” The Family, of course, possessed a weapon those leaders lacked: the “total Jesus” of a brotherhood in Christ.

“That's what you get with a covenant,” said Coe. “Jesus plus nothing.”

Two weeks into my stay, David Coe, Doug's son and the presumptive heir to leadership of the Family, dropped by the house. My brothers and I assembled in the living room, where David had draped his tall frame over a burgundy leather recliner like a frat boy, one leg hanging over a padded arm. “You guys,” David said, “are here to learn how to rule the world.” He was in his late forties, with dark, gray-flecked hair, an olive complexion, and teeth like a slab of white marble. “You guys know about Genghis Khan?” he asked. “Genghis was a man with a vision. He conquered”—David stood on the couch under the map, tracing, with his hand, half the northern hemisphere—“nearly everything. He devastated nearly everything. His enemies? He beheaded them.” David swiped a finger across his throat. “Dop, dop, dop, dop.”

David explained that when Genghis entered a defeated city he would call in the local headman and have him stuffed into a crate. Over the crate would be spread a tablecloth, and on the tablecloth would be spread a wonderful meal. “And then, while the man suffocated, Genghis ate, and he didn't even hear the man's screams.” David still stood on the couch, a finger in the air. “Do you know what that means?” He was thinking of Christ's parable of the wineskins. “You can't pour new into old,” David said, returning to his chair. “We elect our leaders. Jesus elects his.”

He reached over and squeezed the arm of a brother. “Isn't that great?” David said. “That's the way everything in life happens. If you're a person known to be around Jesus, you can go and do anything. And that's who you guys are. When you leave here, you're not only going to know the value of Jesus, you're going to know the people who rule the world. It's about vision.

In a document entitled “Our Common Agreement as a Core Group,” members of the Family are instructed to form a “core group,” or a “cell,” which is defined as “a publicly invisible but privately identifiable group of companions.” A document called “Thoughts on a Core Group” explains that “Communists use cells as their basic structure. The mafia operates like this, and the basic unit of the Marine Corps is the four man squad. Hitler, Lenin, and many others understood the power of a small core of people.” And what the Family desired, from Abraham Vereide to Doug Coe to Bengt, was power, worldly power, with which Christ's kingdom can be built, cell by cell.

On Abraham Vereide: Vereide arrived in Washington, D.C., on September 6, 1941, as the guest of a man referred to only as “Colonel Brindley.” “Here I am finally,” he wrote to his wife, Mattie, who remained in Seattle. “In a day or two—many will know that I am in town and by God's grace it will hum.” Within weeks he had held his first D.C. prayer meeting, attended by more than a hundred congressmen. By 1943, now living in a suite at Colonel Brindley's University Club, Vereide was an insider. “My what a full and busy day!” he wrote to Mattie on January 22. The Vice President brought me to the Capitol and counseled with me regarding the programs and plans, and then introduced me to Senator Brewster, who in turn to Senator Burton—then planned further the program and enlisted their cooperation. Then to the Supreme Court for visits with some of them . . . then back to the Senate, House. . . . The hand of the Lord is upon me. He is leading.

By the end of the war, nearly a third of U.S. senators attended one of his weekly prayer meetings.

In 1944, Vereide had foreseen what he called “the new world order.” “Upon the termination of the war there will be many men available to carry on,” Vereide wrote in a letter to his wife. “Now the ground-work must be laid and our leadership brought to face God in humility, prayer and obedience.” He began organizing prayer meetings for delegates to the United Nations, at which he would instruct them in God's plan for rebuilding from the wreckage of the war. Donald Stone, a high-ranking administrator of the Marshall Plan, joined the directorship of Vereide's organization. In an undated letter, he wrote Vereide that he would “soon begin a tour around the world for the , combining with this a spiritual mission.” Vereide met with Jewish survivors and listened to their stories, but he nevertheless considered ex-Nazis well suited for the demands of “strong” government, so long as they were willing to worship Christ as they had Hitler.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5249775

[gordianot]

30. What is funny the "Family" sounds like the same establishment types Jesus admonished in the Gospels.

Very similar moneylenders and influence peddlers in the Temple actually spurred Jesus to violence (if one is to believe the Synoptic Gospels). Really none of this has anything to with Christianity or for that matter any organized religion other than the raw influence of money and power attached to the name of a religious sect. An example of CINO (Christians In Name Only).

[Blue_In_AK]

32. I always think of Charles Manson when I hear "The Family." n/t

[crickets]

35. Same here. -nt

[Raine]

38. Yeah and both are equally rotten & criminal. nt

x(

[GeorgeGist]

37. How embarassing ...

for Christians.

[nashville_brook]

41. ...

[bluesmail]

43. During Watergate Martha Mitchell said, The Mafia has taken

over the White House. That I believe. Mafia is ubiquitous, now I wonder if The Family is The Mafia...

[goclark]

48. Was Martha the woman who knew too much?

Always wondered if what she was able to get out in print was the tip of the iceberg.

[earth mom]

44. I hope someone is filing all this info away and maybe writing a book about it.

Stuff disappears around here. I have LOTS of bookmarked threads here on DU that have disappeared into the ether.

:tinfoilhat:

[dd20045]

45. try this for lost threads

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

[earth mom]

46. Thanks but all I have is numbers-no thread titles. Will that work? nt