or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
May 09, 2008
IMPORTANT: Do Not Write Down Anything About This Website's Secret Plan To Rule The World
I highly recommend The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet. It's about the highly-creepy yet little-known "Christian" "Family" to which many powerful politicians, in America and elsewhere, belong. It was consciously modeled after the Communist Party, complete with cells, secrecy, cult-like devotion, etc.
And as with most creepy organizations, it's concerned that outsiders will learn what it's up to, and so members write to each other stressing the need to never write anything down. Here's a Family memo Sharlet dug up in the Billy Graham Center archives:
[The Family's political initiatives] have always been misunderstood by 'outsiders.' As a result of very bitter experiences, therefore, we have learned never to commit to paper any discussions or negotiations that are taking place. There is no such thing a 'confidential' memorandum, and leakage always seems to occur. Thus, I would urge you not to put on paper anything relating to any of the work that you are doing...[unless] you know the recipient well enough to put at the top of the page 'PLEASE DESTROY AFTER READING.'
This reminds me of a 1972 memo by Fred Malek, an aide in the Nixon White House, about illegally channeling federal money to administration supporters:
No written communications from the White House to the Departments -- all information about the program would be transmitted verbally...documents prepared would not indicate White House involvement in any way.
I think the lesson here is clear: high-functioning paranoids are always the same.
AND NOW: Fred Malek is currently national finance co-chair for the McCain Presidential Campaign. And while this may sound like a joke, it is not: Malek also has his own blogg.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at May 9, 2008 04:21 PMThat creepy old anti-Semite is not only still around, but still at the center of Republican politics? Wow.
Posted by: Nell at May 9, 2008 06:17 PMThanks, Jonathan. And Malek's not the only CREEP creep still on the scene, of course -- Nixon dirty trickster Chuck Colson has become "the leading intellectual" of the "respectable" Christian Right. He's also a Family man, converted by Family leader Doug Coe just before going to prison for Watergate. Later, The Family helped him build his fundamentalist empire. Sad to say that Rick Perlstein's magnificent new Nixonland should read like a primer on current affairs.
Posted by: Jeff Sharlet at May 9, 2008 08:36 PMJeff, thanks for stopping by. It's a truly fascinating and terrifying book.
I hope to read Nixonland soon, but I still have a ways to go on The Family, as well as much more to say about it.
Also, just emphasize it again: do not put anything in writing about this website's nefarious scheme to secretly rule all humankind.
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at May 9, 2008 11:23 PMThe same Fred Malek who fired people from the Department of Labor Statistics because they were Jewish? That Fred Malek?
Posted by: Jelperman at May 10, 2008 01:36 AMDidn't IMPEACH-Nixon-didn't ARREST Nixon-didn't TRY Nixon= TODAY.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at May 10, 2008 01:52 PMCriminal saints
With a heavenly missiom
A nation enraptured
By pure superstition---Frank Zappa(circa; way back when I wuz young)
AND yes, he IS speaking DIRECTLY about a young Senator Al Gore.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at May 10, 2008 02:06 PMSounds like just another religious cult to me. An ultra-secretive, ultra-conservative religious cult. A cult plotting and scheming in the shadows, wrapping itself in the shroud of Jesus (the liberal Jew crucified by death-penalty worshiping conservatives of his day).
Just looking at some of the people associated with this cult explains a lot...like the crisis our country, our democracy is currently experiencing. Because from all appearances, members of this cult, especially those in power in Washington D.C. over the past seven years, have voted in lock-step with the Bush administration, the worst, most devious and most corrupt administration in American history...an administration that has proven over and over again that it is the antithesis of everything that Jesus Christ taught and demonstrated.
Posted by: The Oracle at May 13, 2008 12:19 AM
