D'Souza and Rev. Moon : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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D'Souza and Rev. Moon

Posted on: May 26, 2008 9:09 AM, by Ed Brayton

There's an interesting story about Dinesh D'Souza and Rev. Moon in John Gorenfeld's new book Bad Moon Rising. During Moon's stay in prison in the early 80s, the Unification Church began a massive PR campaign to resurrect his reputation, particularly among Christian churches and conservative leaders. Kits were sent out to thousands of churches, ministers and organizations that urged them to view Moon's imprisonment on tax evasion charges as an attack on religious freedom by secular humanists.

At the time, Dinesh D'Souza was a young scholar at the Heritage Foundation and he wrote an article for Policy Review, the house journal of the Foundation, about Moon and his involvement with so many prominent conservative leaders. He interviewed a large number of conservatives about Moon. The article was titled On Moon's Planet: The Theology and Politics of the Unification Church.

He noted that a number of prominent conservative individuals and organizations had accepted Moon's money over the years. But he also noted, "Others keep their distance but are not willing to say so publicly. One reason is a reluctance to embarrass friends at the Washington Times." He told Eric Alterman:

What I can't figure out is whether Moon is trying to purchase respectability for his theology, or whether he wants to jettison his theology in order to purchase respectability for himself.

It seems that D'Souza has managed to get over his discomfort over taking money from Moon, however. In May 2007, while promoting his book that claims that liberalism is to blame for provoking the Islamic terrorists, he was paid to speak at an event in Washington DC sponsored by the Universal Peace Federation and the Washington Times Foundation. All of a sudden, he claims total ignorance. "I know almost nothing about Moon," he told Gorenfeld in an email. Right.

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Speaking of Washington Times Loons, have you seen where one of their minions was on Fox news and joked about killing Obama? No, really. These people are insane!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/196939.php

Posted by: Larry | May 26, 2008 10:02 AM

"I know almost nothing about Moon"

Cue contrived explanation:

Because Moon is so complex, so deep, and so in touch with the Lord Almighty, one can spend years with the man and yet know almost nothing about him.

Posted by: Jason Failes | May 26, 2008 10:06 AM

I object to calling D'Souza a "scholar." The word at least implies some semblence of ethics and rigour; I've never seen that in his work. "Writer" ok, "propagandist" sure, but scholar? Nah.

Dave

Posted by: David Worthington | May 26, 2008 10:07 AM

I watched Larry's clip.

Wow.

I want this woman's job yanked faster than a band-aid.

Posted by: Chris Bell | May 26, 2008 11:30 AM

"I know almost nothing about Moon," he told Gorenfeld in an email.

A rational human being would make sure he knew something about where his funding came from. D'Souza appears to have decided that he will be 100% emotional and throw away all critical thought.

Posted by: freelunch | May 26, 2008 11:37 AM

Moon's former daughter in law on the tax conviction which the moonies called "persecution."

http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/unif148.html

"Father [Rev. Moon]-demonstrated contempt for civil law every time he accepted a paper bag full of untraceable, undeclared cash collected from true believers?"

"There was no question inside the church that the Reverend Moon used his religious tax exemption as a tool for financial gain in the business world."

"No matter what the lawyers said in court, no one internally disputed that the Reverend Moon commingled church and business funds. No one had any problem with it. How often had I heard church advisers discuss funneling church funds into his business enterprises and political causes because his religious, business, and political goals are the same: world dominance for the Unification Church. It was U.S. tax laws that were wrong, not Sun Myung Moon. Man's law was secondary to the Messiah's mission."

Posted by: Wake up | May 26, 2008 1:13 PM

Freelunch, you would think people would know who they were talking to and who was paying them. The WP gave a young man an acre of space to write a puff piece about the Catholic bishop Moon has conned out of his soul and is using to subvert the RCC. Here is a passage from his WP article:

http://tinyurl.com/3a9kug

FULL DISCLOSURE: A FEW OF THE COMPLICATIONS in this story are not Milingo's but my own.
Not long after the archbishop's midsummer relocation to Washington last year, I received an invitation to speak at a meeting of married Catholic priests and their wives in Saddle Brook, N.J. The invitation itself was not so strange: My parents happen to be one such couple, and I had recently published a book about them.

Although Milingo has brought unprecedented attention to the issue of clerical celibacy, the movement to allow Catholic priests to marry goes back at least 40 years.[...] Three weeks later, when I received a $400 honorarium for my appearance, it came not from Married Priests Now but from an organization I had never heard of, identified on the check only as "FFWPU." As I soon learned, this was just another way to spell "Moon."

Yes, the nation has little knowledge of the integral role Moon played in manipulating our nation's political structure hard right, theocratic and fascist - so the WP gives huge space to someone to write about his influence to someone who does not even know the name of Moon's "church."

Posted by: Wake up | May 26, 2008 1:27 PM

At the time, Dinesh D'Souza was a young scholar at the Heritage Foundation and he wrote an article for Policy Review, the house journal of the Foundation...

Heritage is a friend of Moon's - they know who the "True Father" of today's conservatism is.

U.S News and World Report March 27, 1989
Rev. Moon's Rising Political Influence
His empire is spending big money trying to win favor with conservatives.

On New Year's Day, 1987, South Korean mystic Sun Myung Moon, who considers himself to be the son of God, told his Unification church followers that he wanted to expand the church's political influence in the United States. His aim, Moon said, was "the natural subjugation of the American government and population."

[...]the [Unification] church has established a network of affiliated organizations and connections in almost every conservative organization in Washington, including the Heritage Foundation, the largest of the conservative think tanks and an important source of government personnel during the Reagan administration. Although Heritage officials deny it, the foundation has dramatically changed its policy toward the Unification Church. In the early 80's the foundation, wary of the church's aims, prohibited staff or fellows from being associated with Unification Church organizations or taking money from the church or church-financed institutions.

As the Washington Times has become the voice of capital conservatives, the Heritage Foundation has become far more tolerant of church ties. The foundation accepts the participation of Lichenstein and other senior fellows in church-funded enterprises and allows its staff members to go to church conferences.

Speaking of Heritage -- Gorenfeld's book outs this UN hating, Iraq war pimp and Heritage fellow as a long time Moon follower. His anti-UN screeds got a lot of play and he appeared on numerous right wing talk shows calling for Kofi Annan's head. No doubt that the UN could use some repair. But a Moon follower working so dilligently to tear down the UN should at least divulge to his readers that his "messiah" is someone whose goal is supplanting the UN with his own "Abel UN" - knows as the Universal Peace Federation. Don't you think?

Time Magazine July 14, 1976 quotng Moon:

The present U.N. must be annihilated by our power. That is the stage for Communists. We must make a new U.N.

Posted by: wake up | May 26, 2008 1:58 PM

DING DING DING! Now we know how Moon manages to keep his opponents quiet.

Any conservative who goes up against Moon gets slammed and slandered by the BrainWash-ington Times.

So.

Here's the carrot: Moonie Money, freshly harvested from zombified teenagers out selling flowers on city streets and otherwise toiling in the vineyards of the True Father.

Here's the stick: Mess with Moon, and you are through, finished, o-ver!

Most interesting. Someone needs to follow up on this.

Posted by: g347 | May 26, 2008 4:02 PM

"I know almost nothing about Moon" D'Souza is a piece of work. Recalls his debate with Hitchens, where he recycles the "Einstein was a theist" distortion pushed by the apologetic subculture, Hitchens calls the BS pointing out E called himself "a kind of Spinozan deist" whose god was non-personal, non-prayer-answering, and without missing a beat D'Souza supremely confidently and authoritatively interjects "Spinoza was not a deist", and moves smoothly and quickly on.
As if D'Souza didn't know Hitchin more precisely meant pantheist, and this technical definitional point saved his falsehood.

Posted by: Foggg | May 26, 2008 4:54 PM