Who is G. Edward Griffin?

The Creature from Jekyll Island was published in 1994 by American Media, Griffin's California-based publishing arm and publisher of the 1970 booklet This is the John Birch Society: An Invitation to Membership.  The text of the book was taken from a two-hour promotional film by the same name. On the back cover of my copy of the booklet Griffin is described as "having joined The John Birch Society in 1960" and having "held virtually every position within the field staff at one time or another."  The short biography continues, "He is one of the few men in the country authorized as an official spokesman for the Society."

Griffin's appeal to join the JBS closes on pages 85 and 85 concisely describes the society.

The Communists are counting on taking this nation, as they have all others, with less than one-half of one percent of the population.  But the point is, this can work both ways.  One half of one per cent of the population organized and dedicated, is also more than enough to restore this nation to health and sanity once again.

How many more American men must lose their lives in no-win wars before you join with us?  Does it have to be your own son your own husband?

How many riots and burning of cities must there be before you join with us?  Must it be your own town, your own business, or your own home destroyed?

How many more campuses must be turned into Communists indoctrination centers?

How many more churches converted into leftist political clubs?  

How many more government controls and regulations will it take?

The first question in that (partial) list has been the primary draw for progressives' flirtation with Griffin, Ron Paul, and the JBS for years - their antiwar stance.  Yet the JBS antiwar stance is based on more conspiracy theories and packaged with both literal demonization of the United Nations and pouring fuel on the flames of the fears that promote support of these same military engagements.

Griffin and American Media also produced "Red vs Black in South Africa," a 1991 video attacking Nelson Mandela and claiming he did not actually have support of black South Africans.  The John Birch Society sponsored the 10-city speaking tour of the interviewee in the film, Tamsanqa Linda, as he traveled across America speaking against Mandela in 1990 and 1991.  (See an announcement of one of the JBS-sponsored events at Brigham Young University, one in Oklahoma, and a  flier from a group organizing a protest against one of the JBS sponsored events in Albany, New York.)

On the tour, Linda described Mandela as a "communist terrorist."  Linda was introduced as working "on behalf of the United Conciliation Party (UCP) promoting 'negotiations with the DeKlerk government and the free enterprise system.'"  After Linda's 1990 presentation in Pennsylvania, a State Department representative said he had never heard of the UCP and the chairman of Temple University's Department of African American Studies speculated that Linda was being supported by "the white South African fundamentalist Christian movement, in other words, the Dutch Reformed Church."

Today the JBS is making a comeback, largely through Ron Paul and the Tea Parties, and  marketed to a younger generation in the name of "libertarianism."  The JBS is also a significant organizer of activism in support of state nullification.  This is a major theme of the article in The Public Eye titled "Nullification, Neo-Confederates and the Revenge of the Old Right."
(See The Public Eye or read the article on PRA's blog.)

Back to the NewsHour Program

NewsHour broadcast an interview on Wednesday with Chris Martenson, co-founder of the popular blog Peak Prosperity. Martenson, a former Pfizer vice president, and his wife left their former life - sold their home, bought gold, and moved into the country - all in anticipation of a catastrophic economic meltdown.  They describe the book The Creature from Jekyll Island. as the "eye opener" that informed their lifestyle change. The PBS audience is never informed that this book is a leading tome for the conspiracy theory of the century, or that it was written by G. Edward Griffin, former spokesman of the John Birch Society and a promoter of panic over Agenda 21, chemtrails, and the "New World Order." He has also claimed that the magical cure for cancer is being suppressed, that he's found Noah's Ark, and that the HIV virus doesn't exist.

NewsHour also failed to mention that Martenson's popularity is largely the result of his becoming plugged into the world of Ron Paul and the gold bugs and writes for Lew Rockwell's blog and his Ludwig von Mises Institute. The irony of NewsHour interview is that the Martensons are presented as champions of sustainability in a way that would appeal to some progressive viewers.  However, Griffin, author of the touted book, believes that  promoting "sustainability" is part of a collectivist plot.  Griffin also describes climate change as a hoax.

This past weekend Griffin spoke at the first annual "Save Long Island Conference" (January 17 -19), an event where the topic list included chemtrails, vaccine dangers, NSA spying, fracking, Agenda 21, the Second Amendment, and GMOs. This combination of topics should cause progressives hair to stand on end.  Agenda 21 conspiracy theories are one of the latest great hooks for crippling progressive activism.

Federal Reserve Conspiracy Theories

Griffin has partnered on numerous projects with Ron Paul, who also has an appeal to some on the Left despite his rightwing ideology and agenda. The Federal Reserve has been one of the issues that appeal across the political spectrum, and Paul's endorsement is prominent on the back cover of The Creature from Jekyll Island. Talk2action contributor Bruce Wilson and I wrote about Griffin in October, when he, Ron Paul, and JBS president John McManus spoke at a convention hosted by an overtly anti-Semitic, schismatic Catholic sect. Griffin's topic was "Financial Enslavement," one on which many liberals might agree. However, Griffin's answers to the problem are the opposite of progressive solutions.  

Griffin's narrative is a little more sanitized than the overtly anti-Semitic version of the late Eustace Mullins, who accused Griffin of plagiarising his book, and more detailed than the simplistic New World Order warnings of doomsday televangelists and end times prophets like John Hagee.  But Griffin claims the Rothschilds as intentionally instigating and financing both sides of wars since the 1800s.  Throughout the book he uses the term "The Rothschild Formula," described as continuously carried out by,

"...that special breed of international financiers whose success typically is  built on certain character traits. Those include cold objectivity, immunity to patriotism, and indifference to the human condition."

I'm describing these narrative about the Federal Reserve as conspiratorial not because its promoters disagree with the policy or even the existence of the Fed, but because it's a "grand conspiracy theory." It's a claim that the Fed is run by a small and ongoing cabal of international elites (sometimes described as owned by the Rothschilds) with the agenda of intentionally destroying the dollar and financial status of American patriots. Often the villains of the narrative are described as having supernatural or demonic powers as this narrative is retold.

Today's JBS media is filled with warnings about the Fed as bankers of the New World Order. Ron Paul and his JBS partners are going to save the average American from the financial elite.  However, the early JBS National Council included Nelson Bunker Hunt and he is currently on the council.  Hunt is known for trying to corner the silver market. Another National Council member was the late Fred Koch, father of the Koch brothers. Ron Paul was the first chairman of the Koch brothers' Citizens for a Sound Economy. Also see my recent article at the Political Research Associates blog on the JBS ad campaign against the Civil Rights Movement in newspapers and Fred Koch's 1963 booklet in which he claimed that the push for civil rights was a communist plot.

The Fed conspiracy theory is a red herring, used to divert attention from the larger structural problems in our economy and to provide a scapegoat. It's a theme often wielded by those who want further deregulation of markets and stripping of federal regulatory power, but are aware of their need to draw populist support. For example, a post by Ludwig von Mises Institute scholar Thomas Woods is titled, "Don't Blame the Market:  How the Federal Reserve caused the crash."  According to Woods, the problem is not under-regulated markets, it's simply the Fed and its "intervention into the free market."  In other words, deregulate more! The market is pure and should be left alone.  Woods, Paul, and Griffin - all speakers for the growing nullification movement - present themselves as attacking the establishment and fighting against oppression.  

Caveat emptor. Progressive, beware of what you're buying.  Again, shared complaints do not equal shared agendas or activism.

Also see the PRA interview with Claire Conner, author of Wrapped in the Flag, a first hand account of growing up as a Bircher.