Reverend Moon
stcynic | August 25, 2006John Gorenfeld reports that 700 Moonies in South Korea attacked a newspaper after the paper printed unflattering reports of the cult's activities. They smashed the front windows of the building, destroyed computers and other fixtures in the building, then sent some 200 text messages to the reporter who wrote the story telling him they were going to kill him. And this from an organization that owns newspapers all over the world, including the Washington Times in the US.
stcynic | July 18, 2005John Gorenfeld has an article in the American Prospect detailing the Rev. Moon's ties to North Korea and to the political right in America. It has long been known that Moon has been pumping hard currency into North Korea, but Gorenfeld provides some shocking numbers as well as evidence of Moon's involvement in an arms deal that Moon was involved in that enhanced North Korea's missile capability. He also puts the lie to the oft-repeated claims by Moon's employees at the Washington Times that they have complete editorial independence. The long history of the Washington Times' running what are…
stcynic | April 13, 2005Note: My friend DarkSyde posted an entry on his diary at DailyKos pointing people here for information about Rev. Moon. It's been a few weeks since I last wrote about Moon, so I thought I'd repost the one that started it all, my fisking of the insanely ridiculous full page ad that Moon took out around the world in 2002. Here it is in all its glory:
On July 4, 2002, the Unification Church (a.k.a. the Moonies) took out a full page ad in newspapers all around the world that just has to be seen to be believed. I'm going to reprint parts of that ad here, skipping all of the statements by all of…
stcynic | January 15, 2005I found this post on Blogesque through John Gorenfeld's site. It details how the Rev. Moon's speeches are often sanitized when translated into English. His translators take out some of the nuttier things he says in order to make them more palatable to non-Moonies. Specifically, he provides a more accurate translation of Moon's speech before the American Clergy Leadership Conference in October of last year and points out that nearly half the speech was redacted in the version that appeared on the Moon website. Among the crazy or creepy things left out:
I am the founder of [the] Washington…
stcynic | October 24, 2004At a time when we are dealing with a growing threat from North Korea, it's probably a good idea to take another look at the relationship between Reverend Moon and the maniacal dictator Kim Jung Il. The investigative reporter Robert Parry has long been following Moon's activities and in October of 2000 he published this report based on the findings of a Defense Intelligence Agency investigation. He reports:
Yet, in the 1990s when North Korea was scrambling for the resources to develop missiles and other advanced weaponry, Moon was among a small group of outside businessmen quietly investing…
stcynic | October 19, 2004Much has been made of the decision by Sinclair broadcasting to preempt regular programming to air an anti-Kerry documentary in 25% of the nation just before the election in a couple weeks. Democrats are predictably up in arms about it and want the FCC to step in; Republicans are predictably just fine with it. If the tables were turned, and a network or TV chain was showing Farenheit 911 just before the election, the argument would naturally be reversed, with each side taking the opposite position and pretending to be objectively right regardless; such is the nature of partisan politics.…
stcynic | October 18, 2004I've written before about the connection between Jerry Falwell and Reverend Moon, particularly that Moon gave $3.5 million to Falwell to bail out Liberty University from impending bankruptcy in 1995. Now comes an article by Robert Parry that shows that the connection goes even deeper than I knew. Contrary to the claims of some of Falwell's defenders, who have claimed that Falwell didn't know the money came from Moon because he had given it to foundation controlled by Dan Reber and Jimmy Thomas rather than to Falwell directly, Parry shows evidence that Falwell had actively solicited the money…
stcynic | October 5, 2004We all know that President Bush is passionate about "protecting the sanctity of marriage", especially from people who want to get married. One of the programs he has proposed to do so is the Healthy Marriage Initiative. As the Heritage Foundation described it:
The President's Healthy Marriage Initiative has been included in the two major TANF reauthorization bills. One of these is the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2003 (H.R. 4) that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2002 and again in February 2003. The Healthy Marriage Initiative has also…
stcynic | August 11, 2004This morning's Worldnutdaily includes a prominent front page headline, Kerry Silent on Beijing Photo. The headline links to an article in Insight Magazine about John Kerry taking a privately sponsored trip to promote trade in China in the late 1990s. Hardly unusual, of course, and the president's own brother Neil has been taking such trips (and getting hookers sent to his room while doing it). But the implication is, of course, "Kerry in bed with godless commies". But here's what is so funny about this. Remember that Joseph Farah, the owner of Worldnutdaily, just a few weeks ago was telling…
stcynic | July 13, 2004Joseph Farah, owner of the WorldNetDaily, has a commentary today about the Reverend Moon that is filled with hypocritical statements. He begins by telling of his experience over a decade ago, being invited to a Moon event in South Korea and sitting on the stage behind Moon as he declared himself the Messiah. Farah writes:Imagine my shock, as I read along in the translation to learn that Moon was saying that night that indeed he was the messiah. I was embarrassed to find myself sitting behind this man, perhaps, even, in some small way, lending credibility to his preposterous claims.
It was a…
stcynic | July 3, 2004These are taken from a speech that Moon gave at a graduation for his seminary students in the US in 1993:My enemies are America and Christianity. How am I going to win over those enemies. God's way is to get hit and win. Everybody opposed Father but I do not hate those who opposed me. It is natural for the world to go against me.
Just think of it, I came to take over and discard the old evil ways. People do not like that. But no matter how many people oppose Rev. Moon God is on His side. Father is in the USA not for revenge but to serve.
Father loved the USA, Russia and even North Korea.…
stcynic | July 1, 2004From the press conference yesterday, reported by Townhall:"It was the spirit world that said he was the Messiah," said Archbishop George A. Stallings, Jr., pastor of an independent African-American Catholic congregation. Moon, founder of the Unification Church, was merely repeating the message, said Stallings.
Conveniently, the "spirit world" was unavailable for comment.
stcynic | July 1, 2004The Moonies held a press conference yesterday to clear up what they claim are misconceptions and falsehoods fostered by us evil bloggers about the March 23rd Moon coronation ceremony at the Dirkson senate office building. The press conference featured Michael Jenkins, George Stallings and other frauds and con men from the Unification Church. They ended up making themselves sound even worse. We've already shown the two contradictory explanations they've given, and their own admission of how they've given two contradictory views of it:"The 'outside' view of the Capitol Hill event was that…
stcynic | June 30, 2004One of the best sources of information about Rev. Moon and the Unification Church is ex-Moonies - former members of the cult who have escaped and are brave enough to speak out about their experiences. One of those folks, K. Gordon Neufeld, has posted a couple of comments here and I urge all of you to visit his webpage and read his book.
Another excellent resource is Craig Maxim's webpage. Craig was a favored member of Moon's cult and spent a good deal of time with Moon himself at his mansions around the world. He puts the lie to George Stallings' claim on the radio yesterday that Moon had…
stcynic | June 29, 2004John Gorenfeld was on the radio this morning in Detroit (click here to listen to the show), along with the Rev. George Stallings. For those of you not familiar with Rev. George Stallings, he is a maverick former Catholic priest who quit the priesthood and established his own quasi-Catholic church called Imani Temple. He did so after he was accused of molesting a former altar boy in 1989 and his bishop requested that he go into treatment, after which he split away from the church and started his own denomination. It was a strange mix of Afrocentric politics and Catholicism, which has now…
stcynic | June 28, 2004The Moonies have issued a press release hammering us evil bloggers for our coverage of the Moon coronation story. They seem to be a bit tweaked that so many of us have dared to call Moon the nutjob that he is. Get used to it, kids. It's only gonna get worse. Here's the funny thing about the new press release - it completely contradicts the statement they made on March 30th about the event. The new version is that it was just a nice man being honored for his tireless efforts on behalf of world peace:Among the nearly 100 Crown of Peace awards presented to civic, religious and diplomatic leaders…
stcynic | June 15, 2004On July 4, 2002, the Unification Church (a.k.a. the Moonies) took out a full page ad in newspapers all around the world that just has to be seen to be believed. I'm going to reprint parts of that ad here, skipping all of the statements by all of the "underlings" of the great religions, along with my own comments interspersed in italics. And at the end, I'll tell you why this is important.
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“A Cloud of Witnesses: The Saints’ Testimonies to the True Parents”
Preface: What follows is a complex document. It was produced at a seminar in spirit world for leaders…