Neil Bush Meets the Messiah by John Gorenfeld; AlterNet

[whimsicaldeb]

http://www.alternet.org/story/29054/

Neil Bush Meets the Messiah
By John Gorenfeld, AlterNet. Posted December 5, 2005.
Why is the President's younger brother, Neil, touring with the leader of the Moonies?


Standing center left, Neil Bush. Standing second from the right, the Korean Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

"Those who stray from the heavenly way," the owner of the flagship Republican newspaper the Washington Times admonished an audience in Taipei on Friday, "will be punished."

This "heavenly way," the Rev. Sun Myung Moon explained, demands a 51-mile underwater highway spanning Alaska and Russia. Sitting in the front row: Neil Bush, the brother of the president of the United States.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the South Korean giant of the religious right who owns the Washington Times, is on a 100-city speaking tour to promote his $200 billion "Peace King Tunnel" dream. As he describes it, the tunnel would be both a monument to his magnificence, and a totem to his prophecy of a unified Planet Earth. In this vision, the United Nations would be reinvented as an instrument of God's plan, and democracy and sexual freedom would crumble in the face of this faith-based glory.

The name Peace King Tunnel would allude to the title of authority to which Moon, 86, lays claim, and to which U.S. congressmen paid respect on Capitol Hill in last year's controversial "Crown of Peace" coronation ritual. [ http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=131 ]

Moon's lobbying campaign is "ambitious and diffuse," as the D.C. newspaper The Hill reported last year, and the sheer range of guests revealed just how many Pacific Rim political leaders the Times owner has won over, including Filipino and Taiwanese politicians. And the head of the Arizona GOP attended a recent stop in San Francisco. But perhaps the most surprising VIP to tag along is Neil Bush, George H.W. Bush's youngest and most wayward son, who made both the Philippines and Taiwan legs of the journey, according to reports in newspapers from those countries and statements from Moon's Family Federation.

While Neil Bush and Moon's church couldn't be reached for comment on the tunnel or his speaking fees, a brochure from Moon's Family Federation underscores that the project is "God's fervent desire," dwarfing such past wonders as the Chunnel and heralding a "new era of automobile travel." [ http://www.iifwp.org/programs/pktunnel/ ... letter.pdf ]

Moon, reviled in the 1980s as the leader of a group that separated young recruits from their families, says he is the Messiah. His far-flung business empire includes the UPI wire service, Washington, D.C. television studios, a gun factory, and enormous swaths of real estate, and he donates millions to conservative politics. In 1989, U.S. News & World Report linked his group to the Heritage Foundation and other conservative organizations. "Because almost all conservative organizations in Washington have some ties to [Moon's] church," wrote reporter John Judis, "conservatives ... fear repercussions if they expose the church's role."

The billionaire Moon has never been one to pander to the Sierra Club, having subsidized the anti-environmental "wise use" movement. Likewise, his group anticipates an anti-tunnel backlash by those who "demand the preservation of the polar region's ecosystem and the protection of polar bears and seals," and proposes an aggressive media strategy: "[P]ublic opinion polls must be carried out all over the world and it is absolutely essential that a public relations campaign to educate environmental groups, concerned organizations and residents near the proposed construction sites be carried out as well." (Moon has said in the past that Caucasians are descended from polar bears.)

In addition to the Taipei report, the Bush brother also surfaced in an article last week from the Manila Times, which placed him at a similar dinner in Manila attended by Washington Times president Dong Moon Joo and respected Filipino House Speaker Jose de Venecia. (It's unclear if Bush attended an intermediate stop in the Solomon Islands.) According to the Manila Times piece, Venecia proposed Moon's idea for a trans-religious council to President Bush in a 2003 meeting; President Bush was said to have called it "a brilliant idea."

The Taiwan paper similarly revealed high-powered support for Moon, describing Republic of China Vice President Annette Lu as listening "rapt" to his speech.

In the United States, Moon's end-of-democracy vision has been honored on the floor of Congress. According to the Congressional Record, on June 19, 2003, Democrat Danny K. Davis joined Republican Curt Weldon in recognizing Moon's "effort to create an international council of religious leaders ... this body will provide a direct link between international leaders and the various religious peoples in their constituencies," Davis said. "We are grateful to ... the Reverend and Mrs. Sun Myung [Moon] for promoting the vision of world peace, and we commend their work."

Davis later took part in Moon's March 23, 2004 Capitol Hill ceremony in which he was brought a gold crown and royal robe to coronate him Peace King. The sponsor of the event was the Virginia Republican Senator John Warner, who later told the Washington Post he'd been "deceived" into hosting the event, a charge that organizers rejected, saying the ritual was taken out of context.

While Moon's proposal has been deliberated by politicians around the world as a mere religious council, church promotional materials make clear that it's intended to forge "God's fatherland," and not just idle talk. A video from his group stresses that the U.N. will give way to a "Peace United Nations," as Moon terms it, with fantastical reverberations.

"Like a candle that burns down, sacrificing itself to give light to the world, the light of wisdom and hope will shine from the headquarters of world governance -- the "Peace United Nations" -- into all realms of life," a narrator says in a Family Federation video (available here via BitTorrent). "This light will radiate beyond the high barrier separating nations and will illuminate the road to peace, the path to the fulfillment of humanity's hopes -- and dreams ..."

Moon has frequently gone on the record against Western-style democracy and individualism, calling them results of the fall of Adam. "There are three guiding principles for the world to choose from: democracy, Communism and Godism," he said in a 1987 sermon. "It is clear that democracy as the United States knows and practices it cannot be the model for the world."

"Individualism," he also said at the speech -- entitled "I Will Follow With Gratitude And Obedience" -- "is what God hates most and what Satan likes best."

Neil isn't the only Bush to attend Moon events. In 1996, his father, President George H.W. Bush, traveled to Buenos Aires with the Reverend in one of several such fundraising expeditions. "The 41st president, who told Argentine president Carlos Menem that he had joined Moon in Buenos Aires for the money, had actually known the Korean reasonably well for decades," writes former top GOP strategist Kevin Phillips in his book "American Dynasty." "Their relationship went back to the overlap between Bush's one-year tenure as CIA director (1976) and the arrival in Washington of Moon, whose Unification Church was widely reported to be a front group for the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency." Moon and his aides have called such claims bogus, saying his accusers were controlled by "Satan" to distract from his campaign to destroy communism.

Reverend Moon is the latest in a line of unusual partners for Neil Bush in recent years, including the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who has been promoting the younger Bush's educational software company, Ignite!, according to the Washington Post.

A messy divorce case in 2003 exposed his dalliances with prostitutes in Asia. Moon's group didn't return e-mails asking how this bore upon Neil Bush's contributions to last week's events, whose central theme was "Ideal Families."

John Gorenfeld is a freelance writer in San Francisco. He has a blog focused on Rev. Moon and his church: I Approve This Messiah.
http://www.iapprovethismessiah.com/2004 ... ffice.html

~~~~~end of article


some additional websites/links:


REV MOON, NORTH KOREA & THE BUSHES (10/11/200)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/101100a.html

THE BUSH-KIM-MOON TRIANGLE OF MONEY (3/10/2001):
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/031001a.html

SUN MYUNG MOON POLITICAL FRONT ORGANIZATIONS:
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcece ... _front.htm

ALL ABOUT SUN MYUNG MOON:
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcece ... m/moonies/

SUN MYUNG MOON ON THE MOVE AGAIN IN AMERICA (12/5/2001):
http://www.nhne.com/misc/sunmyungmoon.html

[whimsicaldeb]

additional info/link:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/ ... ex_np.html

Bad Moon on the rise

Overcoming his church's bizarre reputation and his own criminal record, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon has cemented ties with the Bush administration -- and gained government funding for his closest disciples.

Editor's Note: The Rev. Sun Myung Moon's "coronation" in a Senate office building, the subject of a Salon story this week, has now captured the attention of Washington lawmakers and the media. In September 2003, writer John Gorenfeld illustrated Moon's close ties to the Bush administration -- and to George H.W. Bush, who has spoken to Moonie-run causes abroad, and once said he shares values with Moon's group, including "strengthening the family." Salon has reposted this piece for the convenience of our readers.

....

Sept. 24, 2003 | Last December, at his three-day God and World Peace event, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon drew a notable slate of political figures, from Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and, perhaps most notably, James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who offered some respectful opening remarks to Moon's Unification Church faithful. Moon followed, and called for all religions to come together in support of the Bush plan for faith-based initiatives.

Coming from Moon that made perfect sense, because he already believes all religions will come together -- under him. "The separation between religion and politics," he has observed on many occasions, "is what Satan likes most." His gospel: Jesus failed because he never attained worldly power. Moon will succeed, he says, by purifying our sex-corrupted culture, and that includes cleaning up gays ("dung-eating dogs," as he calls them) and American women ("a line of prostitutes"). Jews had better repent, too. (Moon claims that the Holocaust was payback for the crucifixion of Christ: "Through the principle of indemnity, Hitler killed 6 million Jews.") His solution is a world theocracy that will enforce proper sexual habits in order to bring about heaven on earth.

What sort of proper sexual habits? According to Moon, in order to restore blood purity, very specific practices are prescribed. [ http://www.tparents.org/library/unifica ... remony.htm ] Sex before marriage is out of the question, and when sexual consummation does happen, it must adhere to very specific instructions. First, a photograph of Moon must be nearby, so that everything occurs under the reverend's watchful eye. After two nights of woman-on-top sex, the couple reverse positions, whereupon the man, according to Moon, restores dominion over Eve, via the proper missionary position. Then, according to the instructions attributed to the U.C.'s American Blessed Family Department, "after the act of love, both spouses should wipe their sexual areas with the Holy Handkerchief" --referring to the church-supplied washcloth -- which must "be kept individually labeled and should never be laundered or mixed up."

And, it now appears, under the new priorities of the budding Faith-Based Initiative, the federal government has given Moon disciples its imprimatur -- and funds.

---end excerpt

[Zlatko Waterman]

Could Neil Bush turn out to be George's Billy Carter?

http://www.weht.net/WEHT/Billy_Carter.html


Does Neil manufacture beer?

Thanks for showing this, Deb.

There's no end to the phyla of the Moonies and the Loonies nowadays.

As I've said before on this board, it's all a little like Heinlein's science fiction novel, "If This Goes On . . .", published about 1953-- shortly before Ginsberg was intoning "Howl" in San Francisco.

(link to Heinlein novel page)

http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/work ... oeson.html


This page is interesting regarding what you have posted. In particular, try reading the paragraphs entitled "thematic considerations" . . .



--Z

[whimsicaldeb]

Could Neil Bush turn out to be George's Billy Carter? ~~ Z

Maybe?


....

That there is a religious "war" happening in the US , is obvious. That Bush 'w' feels he's on some sort of holy crusade is also obvious. You're right; Heinlein's "thematic considerations" do indeed 'fit.'

How much does Rev.Moon's influence; how much of Bush's madness (his self delusions of how he's meant to be doing this iraq war for 'god') influenced by Moon? How much is just fluff as a means to keep an eye on things; what with newly made nukes involved?

I don't know.

~~~

When I first found out about the Bush/Rev Moon connections back in 1999 ~ it scared the **** out of me. I'm not joking; as I read about it back then I felt heart-thumping-in-my-throat fear. Today, I no longer do. What does that mean, that there is nothing to fear; or that I faced my own personal fear(s)... or, or, or ...?

I don't know.

While I'm not feeling as fearful as before, I'm still wary and not about to turn my back on this situation.

[Zlatko Waterman]

A little guilty personal history:


When I briefly became part of the Human Potential Movement back in 1972, I met some Transcendental Meditators and EST followers, as well as many Scientologists; I met few groups as looney as the Moonies or the Children of God-- with their "flirty fishing"

http://www.xfamily.org/index.php/Flirty_Fishing


But the activities of The Family ( they had weird, non-Christian parallels . . . like the Manson "family") were never directly apocalyptic, except in a distant, faith-infused way.

I fear that these 2005 "Solidier of the Lord" ( GDUB and his acolytes) see nukes, hugs, tricks and traps all in the same modality-- what does it matter if they are "raptured out" and the rest of us perish in the nuclear flames?

I must say this is all very familiar, this "faith-based" gobbledy-gook.

Thanks again for posting, Deb.



--Z

[whimsicaldeb]

sharing guilty secrets:
mine was Kryon

... brought on my too much thinking, and too much time on my hands!


Live & Learn

[Zlatko Waterman]

"Kryon" looks like fun.

I was part of an Internet Channelling site for a while. But they were too persnickety and really turned out to be narrower than marxists-- also a bore.

The Hollow Earth People and the Ecks were also fun to investigate.

There were some Hollow Earth people nearby, up in the hills, away from the ocean. I used to visit their store: "The Heart of Light", which sold crystals, mainly. Eventually it closed. They had a pantheon of "cosmic leaders" as a mantelpiece over their sales counter. Jesus Christ was labeled "Supreme Galactic Commander."

http://www.crystalinks.com/hollowearth.html


The whole thing was a little like a cross between "Star Trek" and Mel Gibson's world retrieved from sin . . .

One interesting item was a small cage in which an imprisoned house cat, through the use of crystals hanging over his head, could be gradually converted into a vegetarian.

I further admit that I'm rather fond of wacko cults and religions, as long as their main objective isn't taking political power.

Unfortunately, it often is. They seem to possess a powerful urge to "set the rest of us on the right path."

Excelsior,


--Z

[tinkerjack]

It all gives me a sense of urgency.

I don't really have any metaphysical secretes but I come dam close to standing on a Street Corner in NYC giving out pamphlets for Jews for Jesus. I owe Nietzsche a lot.

It has been thirty or more years since i read it but The True Believer still resonates with me. I heard a sound byte on NPR the other day about the big publishing houses getting into religious books. The Purpose Driven Life has sold about twenty five million copies. Moon, Robertson James Dobson, Fallwell and the thousands of mega churches all Christian Zionists. I see an anti-Semitic backlash on the 9/11 conspiracy sites.

Every time you mention that novel I still think of Stranger In A Strange Land, I can't remember, I may have to read it again but it is hard to find used. I thought there was some sort of church led coup on earth going on.