On Saturday the 26th, CodePink was asked to cosponsor and/or participate in the "Global Peace Festival", which will be held on August 9th in Washington DC.
At the time, I was a bit alarmed by the representative's focus on "monotheistic/Abrahamic religion as a unifying reason to support peace". I happen to be a polytheist, and expressed concern that this event would have more of a "religious right" focus than a true interest in supporting a peace initiative or a celebration of the world's diversity. And I was correct to have those reservations, because it subsequently came out that this event is being primarily sponsored by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Yep, that's right kids - the Moonies came to call this weekend at the CodePink house, and we are not the only peace activist group they are likely to approach in this manner.
The Unification Church has steadily - and stealthily - worked since the 1970s to establish a political/financial empire that currently outstrips some countries in terms of GNP. By contributing huge sums to right wing politicians on both sides of the aisle, Moon has ensured that much of the current blurring between his business and religious activities not only goes unchallenged, but is actively rewarded by governmental faith based grants and other government agencies.
Kossack John Gorenfeld's recent book, Bad Moon Rising made it's debut here on DKos. I strongly recommended it afterward to several completely flabbergasted/shell-shocked CodePink members, who also found his 20 minute online movie, "The King of America" extremely educational. My companions are younger than I am and only barely remember the 70's version of the Moonies - a situation the Church does not hesitate to capitalize on today - but when I fled upstairs and told Col (ret) Ann Wright that a Moonie was in the living room, there were many hearty chuckles out of that good lady.
CodePink as an organization could not be much more different from the Unification Church. We're non-profit - they're (rather obviously, unless you're Bush's IRS) for-profit. We're secular and have representation from nearly every religion (or lack thereof) under the sun among our members - they're their own "special right wing Christian snowflake". As a 501(3c) organization we're not allowed to endorse candidates - they outright purchase them.
The Unification Church's ties to both Bush administrations, their known affiliation with munitions firms, their blatant homophobia, their prior absence of support for the anti-war movement, and many other disparities with CodePink's openly stated positions on various issues could mean only one thing: this endeavor would only have had CodePink's endorsement with the incorporation of sufficient dishonesty into the equation.
It's one thing to "cultivate one's inner flake" in order to defuse violence and anger with humor, and quite another yet again to cultivate the lie that one is NOT a flake in order to legitimize a deceitful agenda. This isn't a "global peace festival" - it's a means to fund and recruit for the Unification Church, and legitimize it's shady operation by capitalizing on the ignorance of cosponsoring groups! One of the things that seriously angered me was the fact that nowhere on any of the slick literature hyping the festival did the words "Unification Church" appear. The woman had to admit that she was with them when I asked her directly, but she wasn't about to tell anyone if no one knew to ask!
I immediately sent out a notice to the other peace groups I am affiliated with, and CodePink will not endorse or participate in this event.
Holly Near and Emma's Revolution pretty much say it all on this one.