Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has been focusing on this as well. Here's one of her video segments:
Some of the back story from David Caroll:
Described as a Church or Christian Fellowship House, this place on "C Street" in Washington D.C. also serves as a residence for numerous members of Congress. The members of this organization tagged as "The Family" regard it as Refuge; a place to be able to, be their self, and get relief from the aggressive agendas of Washington, D.C. Evidently having been in existence for quite some time, outside of public knowledge, Secrecy seems to be a critical component of this organization. Strangely, it is also rumored that the Members believe that they are "Chosen Ones" appointed by God to see over the rest of us peons or "less than", people of the United States and maybe even the entire world.
Several extra-marital affairs of Congressional leaders, that have recently made the news, were reportedly disclosed to the members of The Family, long before becoming public knowledge. The way that they handled the cover-up and the disclosure of their inequities, was with counsel from The Family. This in itself brings question to what the philosophy and general beliefs of this "Covert" Klan may be. Some with knowledge of the inner workings of The Family declare that it is structured like a "Mafia". This meaning that loyalty to The Family comes before job, career or even blood family, and that the members are bound by oaths of Secrecy. It also implicates, for lack of better words, that this could be considered a pseudo-religious "Cult", mostly consisting of the wealthy, public figures, and government officials.
snip
This seems to be the realization of the greatest fears of some. By and large, as best we know at this time, these "Family" members are largely followers of the far-right faction of the Republican Party and their political agenda. As knowledge of this organization becomes public, its very existence is a rather troubling story. Just how off track with our Democracy is this group? How many elected officials are parts of this "cult"? To what extent is the Secrecy Oath binding? Would they hide a crime committed by a member? Is there an agenda in regard to the future of our country? How much influence on our governing has this group already had? Who, by name, are its members? I expect that the cat may be out of the bag and we will be finding out a lot about them in the future. I have just ordered the book by Jeff from Amazon.com, where you also can find it at a very modest price. Maybe we all need to know what's up with The Family and the secretive "C Street" complex.
A Mafia type cult? And these are some of our representatives in Congress?
And there is a female group as well that you can read about at Roll Call.
The History from Wikipedia:
And the participants are many government officials:The movement was founded in Seattle in 1935 by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant and traveling preacher who had been working with the city's poor. He opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and was worried that socialist politicians were about to take over Seattle's municipal government.[3][5] Prominent members of Seattle's business community recognized his success with those who were "down and out" and asked him to give spiritual direction to their group who were "up and out." He organized prayer breakfasts for politicians and businessmen that included anti-Communism and anti-union discussions. Vereide was subsequently invited to set up similar meetings among political and business leaders in San Francisco and Chicago.
Vereide's principal collaborator in France was Edmond Michelet, five-time minister under President Charles de Gaulle.
By 1942, the organization had moved headquarters to Washington, D.C., where it helped create breakfast groups in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. In 1944, the organization's name was changed to International Christian Leadership, then in 1972, to The Fellowship Foundation. It was at this time that the group's leaders decided to lower the Fellowship's public profile by decentralizing its leadership. snip
The movement in the U.S. is incorporated in the United States as a tax-free 501(c)(3) organization operating under the name The Fellowship Foundation. While they conduct no fundraising operations, they reported revenues of more than $12 million in 2003 from donations. Its mission statement is:
Their primary activity is to develop small support groups for members of Congress, businesspersons, and anyone else who is interested in the teachings of Jesus. Prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense.[To develop and maintain an informal association of people banded together, to go out as "ambassadors of reconciliation," modeling the principles of Jesus, based on loving God and loving others. To work with the leaders of other nations, and as their hearts are touched, the poor, the oppressed, the widows and the youth of their country will be impacted in a positive manner. It is said that youth groups will be developed under the thoughts of Jesus, including loving others as you want to be loved.
A large number of members of the United States Senate and Congress, mostly Republicans, are resident or non-resident members of the Family or are associated with it. Boarders at the Family's house on C Street currently include Senators Tom Coburn, R-Okla., John Ensign, R-Nev., Don Nickles, R-OK, Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan. and Representatives Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., Bart Stupak, D-Mich., Joseph Pitts, R-Pa, Heath Shuler, D-N.C., and Mike Doyle, D-Pa.[8][9][10]
Other members include Senators Charles Grassley, R.-Iowa, Pete Domenici, R.-N.Mex., James Inhofe, R.-Okla., and Bill Nelson, D.-Fla.; Representatives Frank Wolf, R.-Va., and Todd Tiahrt, R-KS, as well as former Senators Don Nickles, R.-Okla., George Allen, R-Va., Conrad Burns, R.-Mont, and Mark O. Hatfield, R.-Or., and former Representatives Steve Largent, R-Okla., Mark Sanford, R-S.C., Chip Pickering, R.-Miss., Ed Bryant, R-TN, John E. Baldacci, R.-Me., and J.C. Watts, R-OK.[6] Former Attorney General Ed Meese under Ronald Reagan regularly presides over prayer breakfasts.[6] Senator Susan Collins, R-ME, regularly attends Wednesday morning meetings at the C Street Center.
The group's leader, Doug Coe, has been a spiritual mentor for Hillary Clinton.[11][12] When asked about Doug Coe’s influence on Hillary Clinton, however, people close to her told NBC News in 2008 that she does not consider him one of her leading spiritual advisors and that Senator Clinton has never contributed to Coe’s group, is not a member of The Fellowship, had never heard of any of the controversial sermons obtained by NBC News, and does not consider Doug Coe to be her minister.[13]
Doug Coe's son, David Coe, also works for the organization and is considered the presumptive heir. David Coe has suggested that members of The Family "are here to learn how to rule the world."[6]
The Fellowship also has ties to "The Falls Church," whose members include Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard magazine, and Michael Gerson, former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a Washington Post columnist. Falls Church Anglican split from the Episcopal Church in December 2006. The Prime Minister of Australia was hosted at the C Street Center in 2009.
When you read all this, with all the connections, it is very scary. That this "Family presumes to want to take over our government and how far back it goes. Cult? Why do I think of the Da Vinci Code?
4 comments:
You might have seen this before, but when Jeff Sharlet's book came out last summer Laura Flanders had him on for a long interview.
Who exactly were the “Founding Fathers” of the United States of America? Were they the political leaders who established the prolific Declaration of Independence? Were they patriots and leaders of the American Revolution who later went on to framing one of the greatest pieces of writing in America; the United Stated Constitution? Or were they something never really described in our history textbooks?
Or were they something never really described in our history textbooks? A “family” that waged spiritual wars in the guise of American pursuits? The Family, written by Jeff Sharlet, recounts the story of businessmen and an immigrant preacher they followed who together built a global network of fundamentalists and achieved enormous political power. Sharlet argues that this power has been used to manipulate national and foreign policies that have preserved for generations, even now.
In Sharlet's interview, Laura Flanders discusses his alternative views of conventional American fundamentalism. He also speaks about how American fundamentalism has impacted the economics of globalization and use of war past and present.
GRITtv Interview
You'll hear stuff here you haven't on Rachel's show.
Thanks Toni for your incredible post on the "church". The question is how much power do they really have and what is their real aim. I have been thinking a lot about this and am pretty sure there are some non religious people behind it. I think their ultimate goal is a theocratic kind of world dominance that is very strategic. This is a classic organization that contains mostly, as John Dean coined the term, "authoritarian leaders" and "authoritarian followers". I think this goes way beyond a cult which by definition is a religious organization which depends on a leader to get all the info from God and that they individually are not able to do this themselves. In this case, it seems the authoritarian leader is more into overtly controlling agendas than passing any special knowledge of God to his followers. So this is more than and much worse than a cult. Since Doug Coe lectures about Hitler and Pol Pot and other dictator's of the worst stripe, it seems pretty clear they are not out to enhance democracy, but whatever it is they are after it is wrapped in the flag and cloaked in God....and secrecy.
I also think they are violating IRS guidelines for a church or charitable organization. For info on this you can go to the IRS website read up on the guidelines and report C Street so that they will be investigated. Here are the links:
http://www.irs.gov/eo
and read the booklet on Churches and irs violations form: 1828 (guide to churches and regulations)
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf
to complain about C street form: 13909 (this is the important one)
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f13909.pdf
here is the hour of the Randi Rhodes show that deals with this issue:
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/1...
The fact that Coe tells the Senators and Congressmen that their "titles" are secondary should have everyone in the country calling for his head.
Digby's blog
We're Not Kidding: They Really Are Extremists.
by tristero
Jeff Sharlet continues his brilliant reporting on the bizarre christo-fascist cult called "the Family" which counts among its members some of the most powerful people holding elected office in the United States. How bizarre and extreme is the Family?
Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- [Doug Coe, son and heir-apparent to Family leader David Coe] asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply.
And just who are known to be members of the Family?
Men under the Family's religio-political counsel include, in addition to [John] Ensign, [Tom] Coburn and [Chip] Pickering, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both R-S.C.; James Inhofe, R-Okla., John Thune, R-S.D., and recent senators and high officials such as John Ashcroft, Ed Meese, Pete Domenici and Don Nickles. Over in the House there's Joe Pitts, R-Penn., Frank Wolf, R-Va., Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., and John R. Carter, R-Texas. Historically, the Family has been strongly Republican, but it includes Democrats, too. There's Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, for instance, a vocal defender of putting the Ten Commandments in public places, and Sen. Mark Pryor, the pro-war Arkansas Democrat responsible for scuttling Obama's labor agenda. Sen. Pryor explained to me the meaning of bipartisanship he'd learned through the Family: "Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over." And by Jesus, the Family means the Family...
The Family sponsors missions overseas
[But] the Family missionaries aren't representing the United States. They're representing "Jesus plus nothing," as Doug Coe puts it, the "totalitarianism of God," in the words of an early Family leader, a vision that encompasses not just social issues but also the kind of free-market fundamentalism that is the real object of devotion for Ensign, Coburn, Pickering, Wamp and Sanford, along with Family insiders such as Sens. DeMint, Sam Brownback and Chuck Grassley...
When they arrive in other countries, on trips paid for by the Family, at the behest of the Family, they are still traveling under official government auspices, on official business, with the pomp and circumstance -- and access -- of their taxpayer-funded, elected positions. Here's how a former National Security Council official who traveled with Family leader Doug Coe on a tour of Pacific nations described the Family effect in small nations where a visitor like John Ensign is a major event: "It reminded me of the story in World War II, where the British sent an OSS type into Borneo ... And this guy parachuted out of the sky and they had never seen anything like this so they looked on him as -- he had blonde hair and white skin and he was a white god who had come out of the sky to mobilize them. Obviously his side was going to win so they had no trouble aligning themselves."
And their megalomania knows no bounds: more...
LINK
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