All in "The Family"

[ninakat]

[ninakat]

[MinM]

Nice cultural artifacts, IanEye.
I forgot about that 'Family' reality tv series, one of the first.

This 'f' word is the archetype for all ingroup/outgroup social engineering and is hijacked into promoting another 'f' word, fascism.

I think that, among other reasons, this is why spooks promote the Mafia family image to show the use of violence in service of 'family values' as normal and so part of national policy, too.

Hugh, perhaps you mean An American Family which aired on PBS in the early '70s and focused on the Loud family. This show was quite groundbreaking in terms of American TV. It was also spoofed by Albert Brooks as Real Life.

The ABC show Family I think we could agree was an attempt to "quiet" the Loud Family. That is, make a drama that has the same appeal that "An American Family" had but without the chaos of reality encroaching on the nice tidy plotlines.

Personally, i think "Eight Is Enough" did a better job of this. But I am biased in this regard, because as a youth I thought Elizabeth, played by Connie Needham, was totally fucking hot.



as far as the Mafia goes, you are probably right, although I think the presence of Organized Crime in the consciousness of America is more complex.

Put it this way, I don't think it was an accident that Coppola released The Conversation between the two Godfather films.



Just as i don't think it is an accident that Godfather II is both prequel and sequel to the Godfather....

Speaking of "Eight Is Enough". There's a good thread about it's late Author-Spook-CNN talking head:

Thomas Braden CIA - The Education Forum

Timothy Leary told a reporter that watching Crossfire was like "watching the left wing of the CIA debating the right wing of the CIA".

Tom Braden, 92, dies; former CIA operative, 'Crossfire' creator, "Eight is Enough" author
By NAFEESA SYEED
6:02 PM PDT, April 3, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tom Wardell Braden, who once worked for the CIA and helped launch CNN's political debate show "Crossfire," has died, his family said. He was 92. Braden also was known for writing "Eight is Enough," a 1975 book about his eight children that inspired a TV show.

Braden died Friday from natural causes at his home in Denver, according to his daughter, Susan Braden of Takoma Park, Md.

Braden's 1975 book about life with his eight children inspired the namesake TV show "Eight is Enough" that ran on ABC from 1977 to 1981. Susan Braden said her father captured the humor of his bustling household.

"He had a gift for writing about kids. He could relate to them and write about them in a way that I really haven't seen anybody else do," Braden said. "He had that gift to write about everyday life that we all know, but we can't really write about like he could."

Braden was born on Feb. 22, 1917, in Greene, Iowa. He moved to New York City during the Great Depression and worked for a printer. He later graduated from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, which accepted him even though he didn't have a high school diploma, his daughter said.

During World War II, Braden served with the British and U.S. armies. He then joined the CIA in 1950 and worked to promote American arts in Europe to counter communism.

Braden left the CIA in 1954 and bought a newspaper in Oceanside, Calif., which he ran for the next decade. His newspaper columns about his family later culminated in his book.

He returned to Washington in the late 1960s and helped create a local radio and TV show called "Confrontation." Then in 1982, he took the same idea of partisan sparring and created "Crossfire" with Pat Buchanan.

"Crossfire" became a mainstay of CNN's prime-time, but eventually faced competition from networks such as Fox News Channel that introduced similar formats. The show was canceled in 2005. Braden, who served as the liberal host, left the show in 1991.

Braden's wife, Joan Braden, died in 1999. She enjoyed her own varied career, serving as a State Department officer, public relations executive, magazine writer, television interviewer, and aide to John F. Kennedy and Nelson A. Rockefeller.

One of his sons also died. He is survived by seven children, including Susan, and many grandchildren.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
www.google.com/hostednews/ap/

http://www.latimes.com/

[IanEye]

[url=http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/06/19/did-the-ensign-confrontation-over-his-affair-take-place-at-a-family-gathering/]

Newlywed a year ago
But you're still checking each other out
Nobody wants to blow
Nobody wants to be left out...


[/url]

[cptmarginal]

May as well add this from the Toledo priest thread:

Anyways, check out this PDF excerpt from Ed Sanders' The Family - bikers, drug smuggling, occult societies involved in animal sacrifices; many of the exact same elements involved in this story.

Back on topic: this PDF file comprises chapter 10 of The Family, "The Solar Lodge of the O.T.O.", and was quite interesting to me despite the information contained in it being reprinted in so many subsequent places.

For example:

Charles Manson and the Solar Lodge of the O.T.O.

[OP ED]

for me most of it boils down to Koenig's statement:

The fact is that either both Brayton's Solar Lodge and the 'Caliphate' are 'regular' O.T.O. offshoots - orphan satellite offspring of a defunct O.T.O. group dissolved in 1953 - or neither are anything of the sort.

which is why Bill Breeze can suck my balls.

[IanEye]

Did “the Family” Force Sanford to Ditch His Mistress?

[IanEye]

The Rachel Maddow Show: Christian Conservatism's Shadowy Secret Society

[Percival]

My favorite Manson book by Adam Gorightly:

The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control and The "Manson Family" Mythos


Great read, well researched and documented.

[IanEye]

Hampton: Religious Buddies Drove Ensign To FedEx To Mail Letter To Cindy

We're probably not going out on a limb by saying that Doug Hampton's entire televised interview about John Ensign's affair with Hampton's wife Cindy, and the fallout from it, had to have been pretty embarrassing for the Nevada senator, if he's even been able to bring himself to watch it.

But one particular narrative that Hampton lays out really brings out what seems like the utter pathetic-ness of a man who Republicans once talked about as presidential material -- as well as the strangely paternalistic culture of the religious organization with which he's affiliated. And it jibes with yesterday's news that Ensign went to his parents to pay off the Hamptons, painting a picture of a man who, despite being 51 years old and a powerful US senator, still seems strangely weak-willed and dependent on those around him.

Hampton told his interviewer, Jon Ralston, that after discovering that Ensign was sleeping with Cindy Hampton -- and rightly not trusting the senator's assurances that the affair was over -- Doug Hampton went to a group of men associated with the C Street Christian fellowship to which Ensign belonged, and asked them to "confront" Ensign.

Already we're in weird territory here: couldn't Hampton have just kept this between himself, his wife, and the Ensigns? Why bring in these outsiders? Hampton's determination to avoid recognizing that his wife had any agency in the affair, and his decision to address it in an outside men-only forum, goes beyond self-delusion and into a kind of misogyny. But set that aside because things get weirder...

Hampton went on to name four of the men who confronted Ensign: Tim Coe, David Coe, Marty Sherman, and Sen. Tom Coburn. The Coes are the sons of Doug Coe, the influential pastor and longtime leader of The Family, the secretive Christian group with which the C Street fellowship is affiliated. Sherman also has been involved with the Family. "They have a good heart," Hampton said of the men. (He did not address the question of how the men survive while sharing a crucial bodily organ.)

At that confrontation, according to Hampton, Coburn and the other men urged Ensign -- the son of a multimillionaire casino magnate -- to pay for the Hamptons' home and for a move to Colorado. But as Hampton described it, they also insisted that Ensign write a letter to his girlfriend -- later obtained by the Las Vegas Sun -- breaking things off and expressing remorse. Then, says Hampton, two of the men, Tim Coe and Sherman, actually drove Ensign to a FedEx office, apparently to make sure he sent the letter.

And yet, Hampton said that soon after ditching his detail of religious protectors, Ensign called Cindy to warn her that the letter was coming and that she should disregard it. Twenty-four hours after sending the letter, said Hampton, Ensign was with Cindy in Las Vegas.

Now, Ensign's sex life is basically his own and his wife's business. But when a US senator submits to a lecture about that sex life from a group of outsiders, then has himself driven to FedEx to mail a letter breaking things off with his girlfriend -- who, incidentally, is his best friend's wife -- before secretly disavowing the letter right afterward and continuing the affair, he simply becomes hard to take seriously as a human being, much less as any kind of candidate for anything.

And in case that doesn't make Ensign out to be pathetic enough, there's a capper: after all this, when it finally came time to cover his tracks and get the Hamptons out of his office, he couldn't find it in him to tell Cindy himself -- he needed his religious buddies even for that. "Cindy ultimately was asked to leave basically by The Family," Doug Hampton told Ralston.

Leaning on his parents for a lousy hundred grand starts to seem like a stand-up move, by comparison.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/hampton_religious_buddies_drove_ensign_to_fedex_to.php

[rrapt]

OK but the real eye-opener in Rachel's show last night was the quotes from C-street's "leader" to the effect that "we (you) have been chosen by God to stand above all lesser men, to command them, and to make what is theirs yours." Also, "We are not to be bound by these laws, which were made to control lesser men." Etc.

(Above are nowhere close to direct quotes, but relay the sense of what was in fact said.)

Given all the other above-the-law behavior recently seen around DC, this is no surprise to me. It is just one of a number of leaks we've seen recently, which could be inadvertent, OR they could simply be a dropping of the veil as limited hangout, done as part of a dare. "We got the power and y'all know it so why should we bother to hide it any more?"

Otherwise how could all of this crap get into the news so easily? After all, a guy, even a hypocrit, ought to be able to keep his sexual life private. JFK did.

[chiggerbit]

An offshoot of the Family?

http://tinyurl.com/lqzcco







‘C Street’ group tied to Ensign is linked to yet another secretive group



By Muriel Kane

Published: July 11, 2009
Updated 12 hours ago






The powerful and secretive group known as the Fellowship Foundation or the “Family” is quickly gaining notoriety, due to its links to two scandal-plagued Republicans, Senator John Ensign of Nevada and Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

According to the Washington Post, however, the Fellowship Foundation is itself linked to an even more secretive religious organization — Youth With a Mission (YWAM), whose Washington, DC branch owns the “C Street House” where Ensign has lived and where Sanford has participated in Bible study.

A diarist at Daily Kos points out that “YWAM founder leader Loren Cunningham has publicly outlined a vision for Christian world-control,” which involves establishing domination over government, education, business, the media, and other areas.

The last time YWAM came to notice was in 2006, when Loren Cunningham’s son, David Cunningham, gained attention as the director of ABC’s bitterly anti-Clinton “docudrama,” The Path to 9/11. According to Talking Points Memo, the younger Cunningham’s ties to YWAM were discovered by Digby and discussed at length on both Daily Kos and Democratic Underground.

Cunningham was found to be particularly involved in a YWAM offshoot known as The Film Institute, whose goal is to place its graduates “within the film industry, not to give them jobs, but so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out.”

Dave Neiwert, a dedicated student of extremist groups, brought together a variety of items relating to YWAM’s aims for worldly domination, commenting that what he found especially interesting was “the way these supposedly forthright Christians are now busy covering the tracks connecting them to The Path to 9/11. All this snooping is obviously making them nervous.”

YWAM has also been accused of having cult-like tendencies, which were detailed at length in an article published in 1990 that described both the brainwashing-like techniques employed in its Discipleship Training Schools and its financial exploitation of its recruits.

In 2006, a poster at a Catholic message board noted with alarm that YWAM appeared to be attempting to infiltrate Catholic Churches in Europe and Africa by setting up Discipleship Training Schools.

“YWAM Has been under investigation as a possible cult,” the poster wrote. “Several complaints have been filed with the San Francisco City Hall Mayor’s Office regarding YWAM ‘missionaries’ harassment of homeless Catholics and Gays. On several occasions homeless Catholics were not allowed to pray their rosaries at the YWAM mission because YWAMers believe that the rosary is idol worship. One YWAMer even threatened to throw a homeless man’s rosary into the garbage simply because she saw it lying on the couch. On another occasion a homeless man who happened to be Gay was told by several YWAMers that he should ‘come to Jesus because Jesus will make you straight’. They continued to do this even after he repeatedly stated that he did not want to be made straight.”

[daba64]

The Children of God (COG), later known as the Family of Love, the Family, and now the Family International (TFI), is a religious group, widely referred to as a cult by the media, many in academia, and some former members.

In 1974, it began a method of evangelism called Flirty Fishing, using sex to show God's love and win converts. It was also a means of raising financial support as many of the women worked as prostitutes. Flirty fishing has been compared to religious prostitution. The practice was discontinued in 1987.

The group's liberal sexuality and its publication and distribution of writings, photographs and videos advocating and documenting adult-child sexual contact and the sexualization of children led to numerous reports of child sexual abuse.

TFI leadership, admitting only that some children were abused from 1978 until 1986, created policies prohibiting excessive discipline or any sexual contact between adults and minors. Those found to have abused children after December 1988 are excommunicated from TFI membership, but no attempt has been made by TFI members to recognize or reconcile the abuse that took place during the previous twenty years. TFI requires individuals who report child abuse to a law enforcement agency or pursue legal action against an alleged abuser to leave the group's communal homes and move to a lower commitment membership status until the matter is resolved, after which they must reapply for their former membership status if they wish to return.

A central tenet to their theology is the "Law of Love," which, stated simply, claims that if a person's actions are motivated by unselfish, sacrificial love and are not intentionally hurtful to others, such actions are in accordance with Scripture and are, thus, lawful in the eyes of God. They believe that this tenet supersedes all other Biblical laws, except those forbidding male homosexuality, which they believe is sin. Female bisexuality is sanctioned, though female homosexuality at the complete exclusion of men is not permitted. They believe that God created human sexuality, that it is a natural, emotional, and physical need, and that heterosexual relations between consenting adults is a pure and natural wonder of God's creation, and permissible according to Scripture. Teenagers from the age of 16 are allowed to have sex with other members under age 21. Since 1986, sex between minors and adults is forbidden. Adult members may have sex with any other adult member of the opposite sex, and are encouraged to do so, regardless of marital status, as a way to foster unity and combat loneliness of those "in need". This is commonly called "sharing" or "sacrificial sex". While TFI policy states that members should not be pressured to have sex against their will, numerous former members have alleged being coerced to "share" and subsequently cast as selfish or unloving when they did not.

[IanEye]

[IanEye]

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Sanders]

Anyone heard from Ed Sanders these days?

Have a link to a recent interview, or an announcement of an upcoming one?[/url]