Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Falwell: The company he kept

Although I haven't much time to write, I would like to weave together three separate pieces about Jerry Falwell and the company he kept.

Moon. This comes from Moonwatcher Robert Parry:
Falwell sought to conceal his relationship with Moon, sometimes denying (falsely) that he had benefited from Moon's financial help or that he had been photographed with the cult leader. Other times, Falwell sought to justify his acceptance of Moon’s largesse.

“If the American Atheists Society or Saddam Hussein himself ever sent an unrestricted gift to any of my ministries,” Falwell said in response to a question about Moon’s financial assistance, “be assured I will operate on Billy Sunday’s philosophy. The Devil’s had it long enough, and quickly cash the check.” [See “Moon-Related Funds Filter to Evangelicals,” Christianity Today, Feb. 9, 1998]

Falwell’s acceptance of Moon’s mysterious money was first disclosed at Consortiumnews.com in fall 1997. In a pattern common to Moon’s financial operations, the Korean cult leader stepped in when a leading American conservative, in this case Falwell, was facing potential financial ruin.
Obviously, Falwell hoped that his reference to Billy Sunday would function as a catch-all "get out of jail free" card.

Israel: By way of Xymphora, we come to this history of Christian Zionism:
[Israeli Prime Minister Menachem] Begin developed a close relationship with leading fundamentalists, such as Falwell, who later received a Learjet from the Israeli government for his personal travel and in 1981 was honored with the Jabotinsky Award in an elaborate ceremony in New York. When Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, Begin made his first telephone call to Falwell, asking him to “explain to the Christian public the reasons for the bombing.” Only later did he call Reagan. Falwell also converted former Senator Jesse Helms from a critic of Israel into one of its staunchest allies in the US Senate, where he chaired the influential Foreign Relations Committee.
And:
After a series of visits to Israel in 1979 and 1980, Jerry Falwell became a leading proponent of the political alliance between the Israeli radical right and the American Christian fundies. In gratitude for his pledge to work for permanent Israeli annexation of ‘Judea, Samaria, and Galilee’ (i.e., the West Bank) and the rebuilding of the Third Temple of Solomon on Jerusalem's Temple Mount – where two of the holiest sites in Islam now stand – Falwell received a ‘gift’ of a Lear jet from the Begin government.
The most important figure here, in my view, would be former riverboat captain Hal Lindsey. Once the Christian rightists saw the sales figures for The Late, Great Planet Earth, they copied the template -- religiously, one might say -- and sailed to power on the good ship Apocalypse.

We still don't know just how and when the Likudniks joined forces with this movement, and perhaps even helped to fund it. We need the testimony of folks who knew what was going on behind the scenes, back in the 1970s.

The 9/11 connection: This last bit is very mysterious and very haunting. For quite some time now, Daniel Hopsicker has been doing his damnedest to draw attention to this connection. (See here.)

Hopsicker has written many stories about Huffman aviation -- the spooked-up "flight school" tied to both Mohammed Atta and drug running, run by a mystery man named Wally Hilliard. First, let's have a reminder of just who Hilliard is:
Besides playing host to Mohamed Atta, Hilliard’s most notable recent aviation involvement was as owner of a Learjet surrounded by machinegun-toting DEA agents on the runway of Orlando Executive Airport in July of 2000--the same month Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi began training at his flight school--and discovered to be carrying 43 pounds of heroin aboard. Officials later described the haul as the largest seizure of heroin in Central Florida history.
And now the Falwell connection:
But Hilliard's Huffman Aviation, the Venice flight school which trained both pilots who crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, has recently been embroiled in controversy in Falwell’s Lynchburg, VA. hometown.

As the MadcowMorningNews reported last February, a previously-unknown company housed inside Huffman was awarded a large government contract at the airport in Lynchburg under circumstances that had left aviation observers there uneasy...


We met a former Hilliard executive who told us that at one time he been assigned the task of dunning the founder of Liberty University and Pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church to repay the note...


“I talked to Falwell’s accountant, who was very apologetic,” the former Hilliard executive stated. “He said there was plenty of money to pay off the loan, except any time there was money left in the account at the end of the month Jerry stripped it out.”

“Falwell’s accountant told me 'if I can pay you in chunks off the books so Jerry doesn’t see it, I can get it handled.'...


Asked how much he had lent the Baptist minister, Hilliard's reply was, “More than I want to tell you about.”
Not long ago, I spoke to a preacher's daughter who confirmed that, for her father, spreading the word of the Lord was largely a matter of loot. I wonder how many other preachers are similarly motivated?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

When it comes to the tangle of Christian Zionism, Israel, and Reverend Moon, Tim LaHaye has to figure in somewhere very important. See, for example, from Rolling Stone:

Mostly preferring to stay out of the limelight, LaHaye has been the moving force behind several key organizations on the Christian right that have redrawn the boundaries of American politics. In 1979, at a time when ministers confined themselves to their churches, he prodded the Rev. Jerry Falwell to found the Moral Majority, a group that launched today's cultural wars against feminism, homosexuality, abortion, drugs and pornography. In 1981, he helped found the little-known but vastly powerful Council for National Policy, a secretive group of wealthy donors that has funneled billions of dollars to right-wing Christian activists. "No one individual has played a more central organizing role in the religious right than Tim LaHaye," says Larry Eskridge of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, calling him "the most influential American evangelical of the last twenty-five years." . . .

n the early 1970s, alarmed by laws and court decisions on abortion and school prayer, LaHaye began organizing the churches of Southern California for political action. In 1979, he established Californians for Biblical Morality, a church-based political group that lobbied in Sacramento. In many ways, it was the genesis of the Christian right. "I met Tim and Beverly about thirty years ago, while I was on a preaching tour of Southern California," says Falwell. "I found out that he'd done something no conservative minister had ever done before: He'd organized hundreds of churches into a political bloc. At the time, I'd never heard of mixing religion and politics." LaHaye persuaded Falwell to consider doing the same. "More than any other person, Tim LaHaye challenged me to begin thinking through my involvement [in politics]," recalls Falwell. Paul Weyrich confirms Falwell's account. "He encouraged Falwell to get involved in the political process," says Weyrich, who heads the conservative Free Congress Foundation. "But Falwell was reluctant to do so, because he thought it would ruin his ministry." . . .

Lahaye's free-fall began in the mid-1980s, and by the end he'd almost been expelled from the political Garden of Eden. What set it into motion was his connection with the weird would-be messiah Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whose Unification Church cult of "Moonies" was viewed by most Christians as laughably heretical. When Moon got entangled in legal controversy, LaHaye sprang to his defense, amid reports that he'd received substantial funding from the wealthy Moon. By the time LaHaye backed away, it was too late. His credibility was shot, and the American Coalition for Traditional Values soon folded. . . .

In Left Behind, the "bad guys" just happen to be the same ones whom LaHaye, the Christian right and their allies usually demonize: the United Nations, the Europeans, Russia, Iraq, Muslims, the media, liberals, freethinkers and "international bankers," all of whom team up with the Antichrist, who ends up heading the U.N. and moving its headquarters to Babylon, Iraq. The "good guys," of course, are Christian believers, Israel and a phalanx of 144,000 Jews who accept Jesus.

Anonymous said...

Amazing how Hopsicker's investigations have turned up connections between the Huffman Aviation and damn near everybody - Dutch mobsters, drug smugglers, wealthy Saudis of various sorts, the CIA, shadowy Israeli companies, and even Jerry Falwell, yet no evidence that any of this is in any way connected to 9/11. Looks like they were just using those planes for bringing in heroin. Any ideas on why there's no sign of terrorism being involved with any of this?

Joseph Cannon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joseph Cannon said...

To me, the link is obvious. This network was in the drug trade. As long as Bin Laden held sway over the ruler of Afghanistan, he controlled the supply. I don't think most of the other guys in the network wanted buildings to fall, necessarily. But they knew that Osama was the supplier of their product, and they probably had some idea of what he would do with all that money if they kept handing it to him.

By the way: This ain't your cue to sneak in trannyism, my bravely anonymous friend. I keep on telling you fuckers: There ARE other blogs. I don't know why you keep fixating on this site. It's almost as though you'd rather "turn around" Cannon than turn around Congress.

Hyperman said...

The only thing I don't understand in the "Atta the drug smuggler theory" is why he would quit his well paid day job to go smash planes in the WTC ? Why would a drug smuggler who was living the big life and almost bragged about it would turn into a suicidal terrorist afterward.

Joseph Cannon said...

I think he was a soldier. He did the one thing and then the other because he was told to do it.

Anonymous said...

By the way: This ain't your cue to sneak in trannyism, my bravely anonymous friend. I keep on telling you fuckers: There ARE other blogs. I don't know why you keep fixating on this site.


You don't want me to talk about the collapses of the WTC towers here, so I'll adhere to your rules. It doesn't matter so much to me if the twin towers were blown up with baking soda and vinegar. Still, this is one of the few places where Hopsicker's evidence (which I think is very important, even if I find Hopsicker's opinions idiotic) can be discussed, so (when not off topic) I'd like to talk about a)the lack of evidence that these guys were involved in terrorism and b)the evidence that pretty much all they were up to was a boring ol' drug smuggling operation.

Hyperman said...

I think he was a soldier. He did the one thing and then the other because he was told to do it.

You know a lot of soldier who would go kill themselve in a suicide mission ? We're not talking about a risky mission, but a mission where you're 100% sure of dying.

From what I saw on Hopsicker documentary, I don't see how Atta personality fits the religious zealot ready to kill himself for his cause. He was almost bragging loudly in public about his drug smuggling operations, they were going to strip clubs and then they would kill themselve for a religious jihad ?

Joseph Cannon said...

Lots of people have committed kamikaze actions, and I don't think we can lump them all into the "impoverished religious nut" category quite so easily as all that. And I know for a fact (this is a story I should tell one day) that Islamic students in this country can be maddeningly hypocritical in slamming American debauchery while engaging in such debauchery during their time here. Atta's penchant for strip clubs did not surprise me one bit. Within jihadist Salafism, martyrdom functions a bit like the quaint old idea of plenary indulgence in Catholicism.

You may say that you are not giving me trannyism here, but you are. What you WANT to push, obviously, is some sort of bizarre tranny scenario where the jets were holograms or radio controlled or some such nonsense.

See how it happens? This post was about Falwell. But you fucking trannies are such insane zealots -- as bad as any jihadis, really -- that you keep trying to insert trannyism through even the tiniest crack in any door you find.

I keep on telling you: THERE ARE OTHER BLOGS. IF TRANNYISM IS ALL YOU CAN TALK ABOUT, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.

I've also said that the trannies seem bizarrely fixated on THIS blog. As noted earlier, they'd rather "turn around" Cannonfire than "turn around" Congress. I honestly cannot understand it!

At any rate, the discussion ends here. I will henceforth be much more diligent in making sure that there will be no more attempts to "sneak in" trannyism. As always, I advise you to go to one of the many tranny-friendly sites and caterwaul about That Bastard Cannon.

Hyperman said...

I'm only trying to get the big picture here, and sorry if for me the scenario of a loud drug smuggler who transformed himself into a suicide bomber for the Islamic jihad is not obvious. I heard the jihadist Salafism theory before when they were explaining some reports in the news that they frequented strip clubs before 9/11. They were saying it was even required for them to "blend in" in order not to look suspicious. But I don't find this explanation obvious. Can I doubt or is this qualifying me automatically as a "evil lurking Tranny" ? Do I fail my "litmus test" ?

For your information, I don't believe much about 9/11. Apart from the obvious facts like airplane hit the pentagon and the towers and that the tower fell afterward. I'm mostly agnostic and I'm not decided on any scenario yet. I'm not a "truther", but I don't like most "debunker" attitude who want to paint with a broad brush anyone who are skeptic of the official theory as "idiots who don't get it". This is also "science through bullying" in my opinion.

I've watched almost every documentary on the topic, including the Flying Circus (it's been a while, I shall refresh my memory soon) and Press for Truth which are among my favorites (after some initial interest, I lost "faith" in loose change and 9/11 mysteries after pushing my own research in the topic). Press for Truth is very troubling and cast a lot of doubts on the 9/11 Commission Report official theory. There's also a very interesting French documentary (there's also an English version I think) about Siebel Edmond that really shows that there's still a lot of unknown connections (like Turkish heroin smugglers) surrounding 9/11 and what we really know about this event is still blurry.

For the CD scenario (or the even more ridiculous "hologram" theory), it's not probable at all in my mind anymore. I changed my mind on this (call me a recovering tranny, I don't mind). I've read a lot from both side, and I recently found some good explanations for a lot of unanswered questions I had. The CD theory is not probable in my mind now. For the remote controlled airplane, I always found odd (not a proof of anything) that the terrorist only chose the latest model from Boeing that could easily be wired to fly by remote (like Nasa is doing with a Boeing for 0 G research), but I also read recently that they deliberately chose Boeing because Airbus have a kind of "auto-pilot protection" against diving the plane and doing other dangerous operations. I would be really surprised if one day we have some serious evidence the planes were remote controlled, but it's still among the possibilities in my mind. So if this qualifies me as a Tranny, I'll be damn.

Like most people, I'm just trying to understand what happened with an open mind. So if you want to go on a "tranny" witch-hunt and try to see everywhere an angle to put forward a CD / Tranny theory, that's your choice.

I really like your blog btw, even if I find you a little bit hysterical about the "trannies" you see everywhere.