The John Birch Society has always been a far-right conspiracy-monger outfit, and generally considered well outside the mainstream of the conservative Republican movement. (Click here for details.)
The JBS was created by union-hating rich people like Robert Welch and Fred Koch to repeal the New Deal, largely by smearing New Deal supporters (both Democrats and Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower) as commies.
It muddled along for decades on the fringe, then came the tea party, which in many places, including Albany, NY, was led by Birchers who had participated in tea party fund-raisers and tea-partyish sign waves at busy intersections during the Ron Paul 2008 campaign.
So anti-federal-government Bircher "Constitutionalism" and Bircher McCarthyism, shouted by thousands of tea partiers, began inching into the mainstream.
Paul's better-than-2008 showing in the GOP primary polls, and in the two contests held already, is largely due to the tea party effect of making extremist right-wing views more acceptable.
As a direct result of which, the JBS was allowed to become a sponsor of CPAC in 2010, Republican conservatives' major annual convention.
Paul's losing-by-less presidential primary campaign this year was supported by local Birchers/tea partiers in New Hampshire.
Now that that's over, the local Birchers are back to promoting Bircher "education" -- about Agenda 21, the alleged United Nations plan to outlaw private property and the internal combustion engine right here in the United States, and transform "the American system of good stewardship and limited government into socialism and global governance."
Of course, that's another, among so many, Bircher conspiracy theory fantasy -- Agenda 21 essentially proposes sustainable development goals for the Third World, and has no force of law there, or anywhere else.
After a year or so of working on local campaigns (and losing) and in New Hampshire for Paul (and losing there too), the local Birchers are promoting an anti-Agenda 21 program later this month, presented by a veteran Bircher organizer.
Details, below.
The local Birchers will host Hal Shurtleff, a 20-years-plus paid Bircher organizer, in a Colonie church on Jan. 23.
Google Hal Shurtleff, and you'll find he's been doing lots of Agenda 21 presentations in the Northeast, almost all of them to tea party groups.
Though many tea partiers cash checks every week/month from government, hatred of government is an essential part of the tea party movement. Birchers have hated government forever, and they have found that tea partiers will credulously buy into their world-government conspiracy theories.
Here's some of what the local tea partiers will hear from Shurtleff:
A lot of people agree with us, but they don’t see the UN as a clear and present danger. Well, now they do because it is not something that is on the other side of the world; it is something right in your front yard.
The policies that came out of Agenda 21 are showing up right there in their hometowns. I say to people that it is not some third-world dictator imposing this agenda; it’s your neighbors.
Local tea-party Birchers have also promoted semi-annual speeches by JBS President John McManus and other top Bircher speakers, and had set up "education"/ organizing meetings based on the 100/10/6 Bircher recruitment strategy.
The Agenda 21 event is more of the same -- Bircher scare propaganda aimed at getting more people to become dues-paying Birchers.
The tea party movement is ebbing -- in Albany as elsewhere, there was no Tax Day rally this year -- and substantial portions of it have been co-opted by well-funded Republican operatives at the Tea Party Express, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, etc.
But tea party Birchers see their glass half-full -- JBS membership has increased for the first time in decades, and Ron Paul, clearly the Bircher candidate, has done remarkably well this year.
Our local Birchers have learned their lessons well, but they face a basic political problem -- a vast majority of Americans disagree with their program to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, the federal income tax, environmental regulation, popular election of Senators, etc.
And try as they might to recruit a few more tea party types to their ultra-reactionary cause, they will inevitably fail.
So, what are the Birchers up to in your area? Are they tea party leaders? Are they dissing Republican politicians who are insufficiently Bircher? Has Agenda 21 become an "issue" at town board and/or planning board meetings?
Do tell.