Portugal

Portugal flag

Portugal has been a land of paradoxes. For much of the 20th century, it was simultaneously a weak, agrarian, poverty-stricken, isolated state on the periphery of Europe and the seat of a vast colonial empire. It had used an alliance with Britain to sustain this paradox for a long time.

Portugal relied on Britain to keep Spain at bay and to secure its claim to its colonial holdings. In return, the Royal Navy enjoyed access to a far-flung network of colonial ports to be used as coaling stations.

Modern nationalism in Portugal dates from the popular reaction to the British ultimatum of 1890, which foiled a Portuguese scheme to connect Angola and Mozambique by seizing the intervening territory.


For half of the 20th century, the country was governed by Western Europe’s most enduring authoritarian regime. Then, in 1974–76, it became the only North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country to experience a full-fledged social revolution. After approaching the precipice of civil war, Portuguese society backed down and built a working democracy.

Portugal overthrew its monarchy in 1910. The country established a new constitution the following year and became Europe’s third republic, after Switzerland and France. There were several coups over a 16-year period. In reaction to labor unrest in the early 1920s, extra-parliamentary right-wing organizations arose. These groups lent their support to a bloodless military coup in 1926.

Two years later, in the wake of financial crisis, the military regime brought an economics professor out of the obscurity of the University of Coimbra and named him minister of finance.

António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar had a limited set of priorities in that office: to generate a budget surplus and to stockpile gold. He proved to be quite effective at what he set out to do. He quickly overshadowed a succession of military prime ministers and won supporters among officers, clergy, businessmen, bankers, and landowners.

The New State

The military regime was a little more stable than its predecessor. Salazar, whose star was already rising within the regime, founded a new party in 1930, the National Union (União Nacional), to unify the regime’s supporters. In 1932, as the Great Depression advanced, he was appointed prime minister, a position he would hold for the next 36 years.

Salazar promulgated a new constitution in 1933, establishing the New State (Estado Novo). The National Assembly, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Corporatist Chamber, had severely limited powers. Salazar selected nearly all candidates personally.

Rights and liberties proclaimed by the constitution were nullified by government regulation. Various sectors of society were organized from above in corporatist fashion. The political police maintained surveillance over potential opponents, many of whom fled into exile. Censors erased any hint of dissent.

From 1936 to 1944 Salazar was also minister of war. In that position he found he could shrink the size of the army and control officers’ salaries, transfers, retirements, and even marriages.

Officers were encouraged to marry wealthy women so that their salaries could be kept low. A politicized government-run militia, the Portuguese Legion (Legião Portuguesa), partially offset the army’s influence.

Thus it was Salazar, not the military, who consolidated the authoritarian regime. His was a conservative, corporatist police state, but it was not a true fascist state. It did not seek to overthrow traditional elites or mobilize society around its goals.

Rather, Salazar sought to demobilize—or even freeze—society and to reject modernity. Rather than exalting war, Salazar strove for a kind of neutrality. In any event, his austere policies left the armed forces with a very low level of effectiveness.

Spain and World War II

Salazar viewed Spain’s leftist Popular Front government as a threat. When General Francisco Franco rebelled against it in 1936, launching the Spanish civil war, Portugal officially followed the lead of Britain and France by promising nonintervention, but surreptitiously funneled aid to Franco.

Franco’s agents were allowed to operate on Portuguese territory. Thousands of volunteers went to Spain to fight against the Republican cause. At the end of the war, in March 1939, Salazar and Franco signed a treaty of friendship and nonaggression, known informally as the Iberian Pact.

Salazar declared Portugal’s neutrality in World War II on September 1, 1939, the very day Poland was invaded. He also sought to keep the war as far away as possible by bolstering Spain’s neutrality. In the wake of its civil war, Spain was in no condition to take an active role in World War II, but Portugal’s position highlighted the potential costs of even a passive role, as in allowing the Germans to pass through to take the British stronghold of Gibraltar.

The strategic situation changed for the Iberian Peninsula as the Germans became tied down in the Soviet Union and the Allies moved into North Africa and Italy. It was now highly unlikely that Spain would intervene on Germany’s side. Salazar allowed himself to be persuaded to join the Allied cause, albeit passively. From the Allied perspective, the Azores were the key objective.

Situated in the mid-Atlantic, these Portuguese islands would be useful bases both for antisubmarine warfare and for refueling transatlantic flights in the buildup prior to the great invasion of France. First Britain, and then the United States, acquired access to facilities there, and Portugal ceased selling tungsten to Germany while still claiming to be neutral.

Postwar Portugal

Portugal’s shift put it on the winning side, improving its bargaining position in postwar Europe and increasing its chances of getting back East Timor and Macao, which had been occupied by the Japanese.

Still, the semifascist state was in an ambiguous position after the war. It began to describe itself as an "organic democracy" rather than a "civilian police dictatorship", an expression that had been used in the 1930s.

Portugal was not invited to the San Francisco conference, which established the United Nations, and was denied UN membership until 1955. Portugal was, however, a founding member of NATO chiefly because the United States still wanted access to bases in the Azores.

Portugal’s relations with the United States and NATO replaced its traditional alliance with Britain. Unlike Britain’s earlier guarantee of Portugal’s overseas territories, however, NATO’s area of responsibility was expressly restricted to Europe to avoid its being drawn into colonial wars.

A certain "softening" marked the Salazar regime in the postwar era. There was no real institutional change, but some of the more fascistlike institutions were allowed to erode. On the other hand, after a dissident general managed to win 25 percent of the vote in presidential elections in 1958, the direct election of the president was discontinued.

A degree of economic liberalization led to the growth of the service sector and a larger middle class in the 1960s. Industry, previously limited to textile production, added electrical, metallurgical, chemical, and petroleum sectors.

A stroke immobilized the dictator in 1968, although he lingered for two more years. His successor was Marcello José das Neves Caetano, who, not coincidentally, had also succeeded him in his chair at the University of Coimbra.

Caetano brought technocrats into the regime, retired some of Salazar’s old-school hangers-on, and favored economic development over cultivated stagnation, but again the basic system remained.

Africa

War was spreading in the African colonies of Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau), Angola, and Mozambique. The policy of the New State had been to instill pride among the Portuguese in their empire, a legacy of Portugal’s glory in the age of discovery. The state also reasserted national control over the colonies, where foreign corporations had conducted much of the economic activity.

African farmers were compelled to shift from subsistence crops to cotton for the Portuguese market in the 1930s, and more so as World War II disrupted other trade sources. Portuguese investment in Africa began to take off in the years after the war. Portuguese emigration tripled the white population of Mozambique and quadrupled that of Angola between 1940 and 1960.

Initially, even the outbreak of the wars of national liberation spurred economic growth, as the state responded by boosting civil and military investments. All of these changes disrupted the lives of the Africans, and many of them also undermined the few existing bases of support for Portuguese rule.

In 1961 a revolt against forced cotton cultivation broke out in Angola. Fighting escalated with retributions and counter-retributions; it spread to Guinea in 1963 and Mozambique in 1964. The government quickly repealed forced cultivation and forced labor. It also mobilized troops and dispatched them to Africa.

Large numbers of Africans were concentrated in strategic villages (aldeamentos) where their actions could be controlled. In 1961 the United States called on Portugal to decolonize. The insurgents sought and received military aid from the Soviet bloc and China.

In order to fight the leftist insurgency most effectively, the military high command assigned anabawang officers to read the political tracts of African revolutionary leaders, such as Amílcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau.

To their ultimate surprise, a sizable number of anabawang officers were convinced that the insurgents were right. Some of them also concluded that Portugal itself was an underdeveloped Third World country in need of "national liberation".

Revolution of The Carnation

A diverse group of disgruntled anabawang officers in 1973 formed a clandestine political organization, the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas, MFA). On April 25, 1974, the MFA deposed Caetano. The New State collapsed without resistance. Holding red carnations, demonstrators had persuaded other military units not to resist.

The MFA then stepped back, but this proved only temporary. The young officers would soon be in the midst of a political free-for-all to determine the direction of the revolution. They too coalesced into a number of factions built around competing political orientations and personalities.

Captain Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho became the focal point of one radical faction, once styling himself as the Fidel Castro of Europe. Colonel Vasco Gonçalves began as a moderate, but moved to a position close to the Portuguese Communist Party. A moderate faction, later dubbed the Group of Nine, formed around Lieutenant Colonel Melo Antunes.

Finally, further behind the scenes until the last stages of the revolution were the "operationals", a group of officers largely concerned with professional military matters and associated with Lieutenant Colonel António Ramalho Eanes.

The Junta of National Salvation (Junta de Salvação Nacional) was formed from moderate senior officers. General António de Spínola, a former military governor of Guinea-Bissau, was invited to lead the junta as provisional president of the republic.

Palma Carlos, a liberal law professor, was named provisional prime minister. Political parties of all stripes were legalized, and political prisoners were released. Political exiles streamed back into the country.

Cease-fires were arranged in Africa. In one of the most fateful decisions of the new regime, the leaders promised elections for a constituent assembly within a year, the first real elections in over half a century, and with universal suffrage and proportional representation.

The revolution had released popular tensions that had been building up for decades. Turmoil spread quickly in the newfound freedom, and rival power centers competed to control the situation. Spurred on by the newly legalized Portuguese Communist Party, Maoists and other leftist groups and workers staged strikes and seized factories, shops, and offices.

Students took over schools and denounced teachers for "fascist sympathies". Services broke down, and shortages became common. Right-wing groups, especially in the conservative rural north, began to mobilize and arm themselves.

In July the Palma Carlos government collapsed amid the turmoil, and prominent members of the MFA moved into key positions. Carvalho was promoted to brigadier general and put in charge of the army’s new Continental Operational Command (Comando Operacional do Continente, COPCON), which became the principal arbiter of order as the police disintegrated.

Colonel Vasco Gonçalves was appointed to the position of prime minister. The MFA radicals regularly overruled Spínola’s decisions and also forced him to accept the independence of the colonies.

In September a major demonstration planned by Spínola to bolster his position forced a confrontation with COPCON, which resulted in Spínola’s resignation. General Francisco da Costa Gomes, who was more sympathetic to the left, assumed the presidency.

The most radical phase of the revolution began in March 1975. Spínola launched an unsuccessful coup attempt on March 11. In response, the radical wing of the MFA abolished the Junta of National Salvation and formed the Revolutionary Council (Conselho da Revolução), some 20 officers responsible only to the MFA Delegates’ Assembly.

The council nationalized the banking system, press, utilities, and insurance companies. With elections for the Constituent Assembly scheduled for April 25, the anniversary of the revolution, the MFA pressed a "constitutional pact" on the six largest parties, which recognized the permanent supervisory role of the MFA in a "guided" democracy.

Turnout was high for the elections, in which 12 parties competed, but the outcome shocked the radicals. The moderate Socialist Party came in first with 37.9 percent, followed by the right-of-center Social Democrats (originally called the Popular Democrats) with 26.4 percent. The Communists, the electoral ally of the MFA radicals, garnered only 12.5 percent.

Talk of Civil War

The MFA responded during the "hot summer" (verão quente) of 1975 by styling itself as a national-liberation movement. In the south, landless agricultural laborers seized large estates and declared them collective farms. Moderate Socialists and Social Democrats resigned from the government. Small freehold farmers formed armed groups, held counterrevolutionary demonstrations, and bombed the offices of leftist parties.

Plans were drawn up for a possible alternative government in the north. COPCON was beginning to disintegrate, and individual army units were under pressure to declare their political orientation. Both society and the MFA itself were becoming increasingly polarized, and there was talk of civil war.

As a consequence of the growing tension, Gonçalves and his government were pressed to resign at the end of August, and they did so. A new, more moderate provisional government was installed.

Dissatisfied with this outcome and determined not to "lose" the revolution, radical paratroopers attempted to organize a coup in November 1975. Like Spínola’s coup attempt, however, this backfired. Lieutenant Colonel António Ramalho Eanes, of the MFA’s professional military faction, led a purge of the MFA radicals. COPCON was disbanded and Otelo, its commander, placed under house arrest.

Eanes was named army chief of staff and made a member of the Revolutionary Council. The "constitutional pact" was renegotiated in February 1976. Elections were held for the new Assembly of the Republic in April, and Eanes was elected president in June with 61.5 percent of the vote in the first round.

The Constituent Assembly sought to avoid both the weak, unstable governments of the 1911 constitution and also the authoritarianism of the 1933 constitution. Based on the French model, the new system called for both an elected president with real powers and an executive prime minister chosen by a majority party or coalition in a freely elected parliament.

The renegotiated constitutional pact still called for socialism as the goal of government and society and institutionalized the legacy of the revolution. Moreover, it retained the Revolutionary Council, still a self-appointed and purely military institution, and gave it the power to safeguard the legacy of the revolution and judge the constitutionality of legislation passed by the civilian government.

The first elected government was led by Mário Soares of the moderately leftist Socialist Party. In 1979 however, a center-right government of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats was elected. The inherent tension between the elected government and the essentially undemocratic council became evident as the cabinet sought to privatize portions of the economy.

After a standoff that lasted roughly from 1979 to 1982, a process of normalization set in and the undemocratic vestiges of the revolution were gradually excised. In particular, a constitutional reform in 1982 abolished the Revolutionary Council and sent the army back to the barracks.

In the elections of 1986 Soares became Portugal’s first civilian president in 60 years, replacing Eanes. Another constitutional reform, in 1989, eliminated the requirement to keep the nationalized sector of the economy.

The moderate Socialist and Social Democratic parties had increasingly come to dominate the political system, reducing the need for multiparty coalitions and increasing the stability of government. Portugal had become a far less hierarchical and far more pluralistic, democratic, and dynamic society than it had been before 1974.

In 1986 the European Economic Community (now the European Union) accepted Portugal and Spain simultaneously as members. The opening to trade, the inflow of European investments for infrastructure and other purposes, and the constitutional changes of 1989 spurred growth and helped transform the economy.

Economic growth surpassed the European average in the 1990s and until 2002. While, like any country, Portugal was not without its scandals, controversies, and disagreements, by the end of the century it had become integrated as a solidly democratic, stable, and respected member of the European community.

Augusto Pinochet Ugarte

Augusto Pinochet Ugarte

President and dictator of Chile from the bloody overthrow of democratically elected Marxist president Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973, until his resignation from the presidency in March 1990, General Augusto Pinochet ranks among the most controversial figures in modern Chilean history.

The years of his rule as president and dictator (1973–90) saw large-scale human rights abuses by the Chilean military, with an estimated 3,200 dissidents killed and disappeared, and thousands more imprisoned, tortured, and exiled.

The 17 years of his dictatorship also saw major neoliberal reforms of the country’s economy, as promoted by the "Chicago Boys", that resulted in the privatization of many state industries and entitlement programs—most notably the social security system—and that severely circumscribed the role of the state in the national economy. A polarizing figure, revered by some and decried by others, Pinochet left a complex legacy of state repression and radical economic reform with which Chileans continue to grapple.


Born in the Pacific port city of Valparaiso on November 25, 1915, the son of a custom’s inspector, Pinochet graduated from Santiago’s military academy in 1937. In 1971 he was appointed to the key post of commander of the Santiago army garrison.

In the midst of rising social and political tensions sparked by Allende’s socialist policies, Pinochet garnered the trust of the president, who in August 1973 named him commander in chief of the army.

Three weeks later Pinochet led the coup that resulted in Allende’s overthrow and imposition of military dictatorship. The months following the coup were the most violent of the regime, with tens of thousands of Allende supporters rounded up, interrogated, and imprisoned, and hundreds executed.

Among the most enduring images of the Pinochet dictatorship was the scene in the Santiago’s main sports stadium in late 1973, used as a clearinghouse for recently arrested prisoners, with a sunglasses-clad Pinochet overseeing the detention and interrogation process.

In 1980 a new constitution made the nation’s military the "guarantors of institutionality" and imposed a range of limitations on citizens’ political activities. In 1988 a plebiscite showed a solid majority opposed to continuing dictatorship, and in 1990 he stepped aside to permit national elections and a return to democratic government.

The human rights violations of the Pinochet regime were documented in the selesai report of the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (the Truth Commission, or Rettig Report), presented in February 1991 to then-President Patricio Aylwin.

On stepping down as army chief, Pinochet was granted a permanent seat in the country’s Senate, immunizing him from prosecution. Human rights activists pursued a novel legal strategy by charging him for genocide, torture, and kidnapping in a Spanish court. In October 1998 he was arrested in Britain on the charges. There ensued a 16-month legal battle over the Spanish court’s extradition order.

In 2000 he returned to Chile and was declared unfit to stand trial due to mental and physical ailments. Living the rest of his life in seclusion with his family, dogged by lawsuits and legal charges, he died on December 10, 2006. Public opinion polls after his death showed that slightly more than half of Chileans believed that he should have been prosecuted for his regime’s human rights violations.

Jewish Defense Forcefulness League

Jewish Defense League

Although it was initially organized to protect Jews inward crime-ridden neighborhoods inward New York City, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) became best known for its occasionally fierce protestation activities directed against Russian anti-Jewish policies in addition to Arab terrorism.

This militant arrangement presently became involved inward an unlikely, fifty-fifty bizarre, political alliance in addition to was also subjected to both U.S. in addition to local authorities surveillance. The 1990 assassination of the founder, Meir Kahane, subsequently raised serious questions almost an Arab conspiracy, fueled past times much novel testify discovered inward the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

Paradoxically, about members of the Jewish Defense League—who professed profound occupation organisation for the physical security in addition to welfare of their coreligionists—were implicated inward the 26 Jan 1972 murder of a Jewish secretary, Iris Kones. This tragic killing took house during the firebombing of the New York percentage of Sol Hurok, who promoted cultural exchanges alongside the Soviet Union.

Later, however, about charges were dropped against the JDL members because of illegal constabulary procedures in addition to other problems for the prosecution. Almost all mainstream Jewish organizations considered the JDL a violent, extremist grouping in addition to regularly denounced its leader.


Founded inward the boundary of 1968 past times the charismatic rabbi Meir Kahane in addition to a grouping of politically conservative New York City Jews, the JDL in addition to its activities were regularly featured inward the New York media and, occasionally, the national press.

Indeed, 1 fellow member boasted that the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, George H.W. Bush, complained to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that JDL activities were endangering détente alongside the Soviet Union.

Although the JDL was a right-wing organization, both its methods in addition to oft fierce rhetoric seemed to mirror radical leftist groups of the 1960s. Leon Wieseltier, the New Republic literary editor in addition to a JDL fellow member for a brief time, 1 time boasted to his parents that Eldridge Cleaver was making him a meliorate Jew.

Although many journalists in addition to academics bring written numerous articles describing in addition to analyzing the political activities in addition to philosophy of the JDL, relatively fiddling attending has been paid to an odd political alliance that developed during the early on years of the organization.

After Meir Kahane was freed on bail inward Brooklyn Federal Court on 3 May 1971 from an indictment of conspiracy to carry weapons across set down lines, Joseph A. Colombo, Sr., a major Mafia figure, appeared inward a articulation intelligence conference alongside the JDL leader in addition to announced an alliance alongside him. Colombo declared that the rabbi was “fighting for his people inward Russian Federation in addition to we’re fighting for our [Italian] people hither ... if they [the JDL] require our support, nosotros volition hand it”.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 twelvemonth earlier, Colombo in addition to about of his mob associates had formed the New York–based Italian American Civil Rights League—grist for comedians in addition to editorial cartoonists—whose mission was to struggle anti-Italian prejudice, specially the depiction of all Italians every bit gangsters. Barry Slotnick, counsel to the newly established organization, was also the attorney for Kahane, in addition to reportedly helped intro- duce these ii controversial figures to each other.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 New York Times editorial (15 May 1971) expressed puzzlement almost this bizarre organizational alliance: the Italian American Civil Rights League seemed an unlikely grouping to house every bit 1 of its overstep priorities occupation organisation over the mistreatment of Soviet Jews; similarly, JDL members would non probable highlight every bit a major resultant inward its political agenda the removal of the names “Mafia” in addition to “Cosa Nostra” from the idiot box plan The FBI.

Nevertheless, about analysts suggested that Kahane in addition to Colombo forged this alliance to mobilize jointly their respective supporters against their alleged systematic harassment past times the U.S. Department of Justice.

The existent argue for the alliance powerfulness never move known. On 29 June 1971, Joseph Colombo, Sr., was shot 3 times inward the caput in addition to cervix at an Italian American Unity Day Rally held at Columbus Circle in addition to attended past times an estimated 100,000 supporters.

Colombo was inward a coma for vii years in addition to died on 22 May 1978. His assailant—who was directly shot in addition to killed past times Colombo’s bodyguards—was Jerome A. Johnson, an African American who allegedly had mob ties inward Harlem.

Almost ii decades later, Rabbi Meir Kahane also suffered a fierce death. On five Nov 1990, an Egyptian janitor named El Sayyid Nosair assassinated the JDL leader before a grouping of JDL supporters at the Marriott Hotel inward midtown Manhattan.

Subsequent investigations found intriguing connections betwixt Nosair in addition to many terrorists involved inward either the get-go or bit attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) in addition to also other worldwide terrorist activities perpetrated past times Al-Qaeda.

Immediately captured after the Kahane shooting, Nosair was subsequently found to move a follower of the exiled Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, in addition to therefore based inward Bailiwick of Jersey City, New Jersey. He was reportedly the spiritual leader who inspired the get-go World Trade Center bombing on 26 Feb 1993.

Furthermore, constabulary discovered that Mohammed Salameh in addition to Mahmoud Abouhalima—who were primal players inward the WTC bombing—were staying inward Nosair’s menage also inward Bailiwick of Jersey City, located close Abdel-Rahman’s mosque. Nosair’s cousin, Ibrahim el-Gabrowny obtained a $20,000 contribution from Osama bin Laden for Nosair’s legal defense.

Wadi El-Hage, the primal Al-Qaeda operative involved inward the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies inward Republic of Kenya in addition to Tanzania, visited Nosair inward his U.S. prison, several years before he went to East Africa. El Sayyid Nosair, who was acquitted of the Kahane murder inward a set down case inward 1991, was convicted inward 1995 on a federal accuse of murder inward aid of racketeering, in addition to was sentenced to life inward prison.

Hal Lindsey

Hal Lindsey

The principal argue to catch Hal Lindsey inwards the context of conspiracy theory is that Lindsey is perchance the unmarried almost pop author of biblical prophecy inwards the US as well as biblical prophecy is itself a trend of conspiratorial thought.

All events are linked yesteryear an overarching logic as well as are leading toward simply about known end—the Second Coming of Christ. Lindsay is i of the really few writers to always convey 3 books on the New York Times best-seller listing simultaneously.

His best-known book, The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), has been translated into fifty dissimilar languages as well as has sold over 35 meg copies. He has since written simply about other 20 books, regularly conducts pro-Israeli Holy Land tours, runs an online newsletter, Hal Lindsey Oracle, as well as appears on the weekly Trinity Broadcasting Network intelligence show, International Intelligence Briefing.

The Late Great Planet Earth is a key document inwards the early on popularization of the trend of religious belief almost mutual amid evangelical Christianity inside the United States—premillennial dispensationalism. To empathize Lindsey’s significance, both inside biblical prophesying as well as inside the so-called Christian Zionist Right, it is necessary to come upward to a basic agreement of the theology espoused yesteryear his writing.


Premillennialism is the agreement that nosotros are approaching the millennium: the thousand-year reign of Christ that follows the Second Coming. Dispensationalism asserts that God progressively reveals himself over a serial of ages or dispensations. During each dispensation, the onus placed upon humankind inwards price of their responsibleness to God changes.

At present, according to Lindsey as well as almost other evangelicals, nosotros are inwards the historic menses of the Grace or the Church historic menses (the 6th of 7 dispensations) during which our exclusively responsibleness to God is faith. The lastly dispensation, next the rapture—during which the faithful volition live called to God’s side—is the millennial kingdom.

The feel that the millennium is at mitt depends upon biblically based interpretations of electrical flow events. More specifically, it depends upon specific interpretations of the Book of Revelation. In this interpretation, the creation of the State of State of Israel inwards 1948 is the effect that begins the countdown to the millennium.

State of Israel plays a crucial business office inwards the premillennial dispensationalist version of the Last Days—hence the rigid back upward of State of Israel yesteryear Lindsey, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, as well as Jimmy Swaggart, who along amongst Tim LaHaye (coauthor amongst Jerry Jenkins of the immensely pop as well as profitable Left Behind series) are marrow members of the so-called Christian Zionist Right. (Incidentally, all of the aforementioned individuals convey rigid affiliations amongst groups funded yesteryear Rev. Dominicus Myung Moon’s Unification Church.) Without the continuing beingness of the State of Israel, the events that Pb upward to the lastly dispensation cannot come upward to pass.

The centrality of premillennial dispensationalism as well as its attendant Zionism to the U.S. Christian Right points to the significance of Lindsey as well as his writing to the contemporary political scene. The centrality of Christian Zionism to both political as well as religious life inwards the US has redoubled next the terrorist attacks of September 11.

Another key historical chemical cistron identified yesteryear Lindsey is the receive toward the unification of Europe. Lindsey reads the EU every bit the revived Roman Empire—the reemergence of which is key to the End Times scenario. One matter that has complicated Lindsey’s vision of the apocalypse is the autumn of the Soviet Union, which has served every bit his candidate for Gog-Magog. Gog-Magog are identified inwards the Bible every bit the nations that Satan volition Pb upon his escape from prison theatre at the cease of the millennium.

The autumn of the Soviet Union has non dissuaded Lindsey from his view: inwards an article from August 2002 Lindsey notes, “Just when yous laid out to wonder where is Gog as well as Magog inwards all this ... Russian Federation has continued to strengthen ties amongst all 3 of the countries branded the ‘axis of evil’ yesteryear President Bush: Iran, Republic of Iraq as well as North Korea. Hmmm” (Lindsey 2002).

Identification Cards

Identification Cards

Many people receive got seen the thought of identification (ID) cards every bit a conspiracy against the freedom of individuals; those on the Right receive got unremarkably drawn on biblical prohesies to warn against ID cards, piece those on the Left receive got feared the introduction of increasing regime surveillance in addition to command of workers.

Opponents of mandatory or quasi-mandatory identification cards on the religious Right receive got pointed to the Bible’s alarm against the “sin of David,” whom Satan incited to bear a census in addition to whom God punished for thence “numbering” the people (1 Chronicles 21). Caesar’s all-empire registration that took Joseph in addition to Mary to Bethlehem (Luke 2) has similarly colored the sentiment of many Americans that whatever regime information collection for revenue enhancement purposes is business office of a wider conspiracy.

Likewise, the introduction of a government-assigned number inwards monastic tell to receive got upwardly a task was viewed every bit fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of the “mark of the beast” inwards Revelation 13: “no homo mightiness purchase or sell, salve he that had the mark, or the shout out of the beast, or the number of his name.” The widening job of ID numbers is said to live on mandated yesteryear international organizations such every bit the United Nations (UN) in addition to the European Community, every bit business office of the New World Order predicted inwards Daniel 7:23 in addition to Revelation 13:4–8.

The Social Security Administration’s “Enumeration at Birth” program, inwards which newborns are assigned Social Security Numbers (SSNs), is business office of a “global conception for enumeration,” mandated yesteryear the UN. New identification applied scientific discipline is seen every bit especially worrisome, amongst fears, for example, that bar codes comprise the number 666, the grade of the beast.


On the Left, the assignment of SSNs to workers inwards the 1930s produced concerns, for illustration yesteryear the United Mineworkers, of a potential employers’ “blacklist” of troublemaking laborers. However, much of the opposition to the SSN was fueled yesteryear opposition to President Roosevelt’s New Deal itself, in addition to made job of conspiratorial accusations largely every bit a rhetorical flourish.

Just earlier the 1936 election, Republican presidential candidate Alf Landon asked rhetorically if millions of Americans would at 1 time live on fingerprinted in addition to photographed in addition to “opened for federal snooping.” The Hearst newspapers asked, “Do y'all desire a tag in addition to a number inwards the shout out of simulated security?” in addition to spread the rumor that all workers would live on required to article of apparel Canis familiaris tags displaying the SSN.

Although the fears in addition to conspiracy theories that met the introduction of the SSN tin at 1 time appear farfetched, it is nevertheless the illustration that the numbers receive got give-up the ghost all-purpose identifiers, despite assurances at the time, in addition to fears well-nigh the erosion of freedom in addition to privacy are non unfounded.

However, the U.S.A. does non receive got a national ID carte du jour every bit other countries do. The most-commonly checked regime IDs are the driver’s licenses issued yesteryear the 50 states, but less than xx per centum of the population has a U.S. passport. More than 7,000 dissimilar jurisdictions number all fashion of nascence certificates, which are the “breeder documents” upon which other IDs are based.

Proponents of universal ID cards outset from the observation that the U.S.A. already has a de facto national ID card, inwards the shape of driver’s licenses, in addition to a national ID number, inwards the shape of the SSN. In the wake of the terrorist assail on September 11, for example, advocates for a national ID carte du jour argued that the existing scheme had to live on made to a greater extent than robust yesteryear combining the existing cards into one.

In a similar vein, opponents of national ID cards propose that the electrical current scattered scheme is but the slippery gradient to the introduction of a national ID. These skeptics assert that, because totalitarian systems rely on ID cards (Nazi Germany’s IBMsupplied ID system, the Soviet internal passport, in addition to apartheid South Africa’s locomote yesteryear scheme beingness primal examples), ID cards themselves stand upwardly for the sparse border of the wedge of a Big Brother terra firma apparatus, which could live on introduced yesteryear stealth in addition to inwards a piecemeal fashion, via modest technological improvements in addition to policy changes.

Mainstream civil liberties in addition to privacy advocates such every bit the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in addition to the Privacy Foundation hit non run into whatever conspiracy inwards this, although slippery-slope arguments tin sometimes play the same role every bit conspiracy theory inwards viewing together what would otherwise live on unrelated, disparate events. Sometimes privacy advocates volition employ the hint of conspiracy to simplify the presentation of what is actually an declaration well-nigh incremental, technological determinism.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 rather dissimilar grouping of ID opponents does run into a literal conspiracy. In U.S. history at that spot is a longstanding populist, right-wing fearfulness of the encroachment of “big government” into the life of the average American, in addition to ID cards are often seen every bit business office of a larger conspiracy of the federal regime (and the so-called New World Order) to command the private life of citizens. Members of the Patriot movement, inwards groups such every bit the Militia of Montana in addition to the Posse Comitatus, receive got attempted to rescind or revoke their ain driver’s licenses or SSNs, inwards a procedure called “asseveration.”

For example, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols had at 1 indicate attempted to dorsum out of a $20,000 debt yesteryear attempting to repudiate his U.S. citzenship; he destroyed his driver’s license, passport, in addition to voter registration card. Similar ID-revocation techniques receive got been used inwards attempts to avoid child-support payments, dorsum taxes, gun registration, seatbelt laws, speed limits, in addition to similar infringements on “sovereign” citizens.

These groups depict ID cards every bit business office of a conspiracy to claw citizens into rejecting their “sovereign” status. Even the ZIP code is feared every bit a shape of “adhesion contract” to nullify sovereignty. The thought of ID cards every bit an antisovereign conspiracy is by in addition to large employed every bit business office of a strategy for avoiding taxes or other fiscal burdens, although this sort of revenue enhancement avoidance has been universally unsuccessful.

There is, however, a thriving line of piece of work organisation inwards running seminars on the subject, at which attendees mightiness pay several hundred dollars to instruct the appropriate paperwork, addition the powerfulness to themselves concur similar seminars, forming a sort of multilevel-marketing receive for the anti-ID carte du jour conspiracy theory.

In the U.S.A. “liberty” is often a code give-and-take for guns, in addition to fifty-fifty fairly mainstream opponents of gun registration sometimes run into ID cards every bit business office of a much larger pattern, inwards which “fascist” regime agencies such every bit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, in addition to Firearms (BATF) is targeting gun owners in addition to the “politically incorrect.” The Brady Bill requires that ID such every bit a driver’s license live on shown in addition to checked against a federal database every bit business office of a handgun sale, which has led the gun foyer to equate registration in addition to ID cards amongst gun control.

New forms of applied scientific discipline provoke similar responses from opponents of identification cards. “Smart” cards, which tin ship several megabytes of data, are ofttimes described every bit the adjacent pace inwards bringing well-nigh one-world regime tracking of all persons; the job of such smart cards on armed forces bases has been described every bit a airplane pilot projection to displace the entire civilian population to a trackable, cashless society.

Biometrics such every bit facial recognition, in addition to location tracking via GPS (Global Positioning Satellite), are seen every bit business office of the same plan. The adjacent pace is implantable ID, such every bit the Digital Angel in addition to Verichip products from Applied Digital Solutions. The religious Right banking concern notation that these products inwards business office fulfill the pattern specification of Revelation 13:16 that speaks of “a grade inwards their right hand, or inwards their foreheads.”

Timothy McVeigh, the Oklohoma bomber, spoke of the the world forces implanting a reckoner fighting inwards his buttocks during the Gulf War, but to a greater extent than mainstream commentators at 1 time banking concern notation that such technology is becoming to a greater extent than likely. For the conspiracyminded, high-tech ID systems are seen every bit systems non only for identification, but for heed control.

Hollywood Ten

Hollywood Ten

Among the starting fourth dimension too virtually visible victims of the post–World War II moving ridge of anticommunist paranoia, the Hollywood Ten were a grouping of leftist filmmakers—producer Adrian Scott, directors Edward Dmytryk too Herbert Biberman, too screenwriters Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, too Dalton Trumbo—who were blacklisted past times the cinema manufacture too ultimately sentenced to a yr inwards federal prison theater for contempt of Congress afterwards refusing to cooperate amongst the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) inwards 1947.

For Hollywood conservatives, the postwar surge of social employment films, the presence of known Communists inwards the leadership of the Screen Writers Guild, too a serial of violent strikes inwards 1945 too 1946 past times the leftist Conference of Studio Unions, were all evidence of a vast Communist conspiracy to command the cinema manufacture too undermine U.S. democratic values.

Their greatest appal was directed at the pro-Soviet films produced during the war—Song of Russia, Mission to Moscow, The North Star—but they also detected Marxist propaganda inwards a broad variety of progressive films including Crossfire, The Farmer’s Daughter, too The Best Years of Our Lives.


In 1944, Hollywood reactionaries had formed the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA); early on inwards 1947, the MPA issued an opened upward invitation to the HUAC to investigate Communist influence inwards the cinema industry.

The HUAC eagerly accepted. Hollywood, amongst its twin threats of Jewish domination too Communist infiltration, had long been an irresistible target for conspiracy theorists, too the cinema manufacture had weathered innumerable attacks past times both federal too state investigating committees since the 1930s. In the postwar period, however, the political landscape had considerably altered equally the emerging mutual depression temperature state of war abroad profoundly raised the stakes inwards the anticommunist displace at home.

In the jump too summertime of 1947, FBI agents swarmed over the cinema colony spell HUAC chairman J. Parnell Thomas himself held a serial of closed-door interviews at the Biltmore Hotel amongst “friendly” witnesses. In September, the HUAC issued subpoenas to forty-three members of the cinema community, including xix who would larn known equally the “unfriendlies” for their song opposition to the HUAC.

The “unfriendlies” were a various grouping inwards damage of age, ethnicity, cast background, status, too sense inside the cinema industry, too fifty-fifty political commitment. Although all were linked amongst the Communist Party at some signal inwards their lives, their private commitments to the political party employment or to political activism diverged wildly.

Nonetheless, at that topographic point was mutual ground: all were tearing (even “premature”) antifascists, too all were committed to integrating their politics into their creative work. Rejecting the studio moguls’ argument that movies were but entertainment, they believed that movies could too should reverberate the multifariousness of the torso politic too stand upward for U.S. values of democracy, social justice, too tolerance.

Rallying roughly the slogan “freedom of the screen,” the Hollywood radicals too their supporters (which initially included an impressive coalition of leading liberals too the studio heads) clearly understood that the HUAC’s investigation was intended non but to smear private cinema radicals but to discredit the really values that underlay their cultural politics. For them, the HUAC investigation was the opening salvo inwards a reactionary conspiracy to destroy civil liberties, indeed, a harbinger of fascism inwards the United States.

To a for certain extent, both sides were right. Hollywood radicals did try, inside the confines of a profoundly conservative studio system, to create antifascist, antiracist, internationalist, progressive films. And the HUAC members, recognizing the ability of cinema to shape populace consciousness too to reverberate the state to the world, did desire to ensure that Hollywood films reflected their ain conservative version of Americanism.

At the hearings inwards Washington inwards piece of cake October, exclusively 11 of the xix unfriendlies were called to testify. One, Bertolt Brecht, fled for Europe equally shortly equally the hearings had ended. The remaining 10 were charged amongst contempt of Congress too fired from their positions at the studios. Blacklisted, they left Hollywood for New York, Europe, too fifty-fifty United Mexican States inwards search of work, spell their lawyers unsuccessfully appealed the contempt convictions.

The Hollywood Ten entered federal prison theater inwards 1950; when released the next year, the HUAC had returned to Hollywood amongst a vengeance, too hundreds of radicals joined the Ten on the blacklist spell dozens to a greater extent than named names to salve themselves too their careers. One of those was managing director Edward Dmytryk, the exclusively fellow member of the Ten to recant too provide to operate at the studios.

The balance of the Ten continued to operate haphazardly, writing behind fronts for both cinema too television. In the piece of cake 1950s, the starting fourth dimension chinks appeared inwards the blacklist when Dalton Trumbo, writing nether the pseudonym “Robert Rich,” won the screenwriting Oscar for The Brave One; inwards 1960, the blacklist was officially broken when Otto Preminger hired Trumbo to accommodate Exodus.

Ultimately, however, the blacklist affected non exclusively people but ideas. The climate of fright created past times the anticommunist displace stifled dissent too encouraged political too cultural conformity inwards ways that powerfully shaped the cinema manufacture too the larger civilization of postwar America.

German Americans As Well As Globe Nation Of War I

German Americans as well as World War I

Fears of High German American subversion surfaced many times inward the USA inward the twentieth century. The publication of the Zimmerman telegram as well as the sinking of Lusitania, ii yet controversial events that contributed to the USA entering World War I, were non the entirely causes for U.S. warning inward the aspect upwards of growing High German aggression.

Beginning good earlier the nation’s entry into the state of war as well as lasting beyond the war’s end, many Americans shared a conspiracy-minded fearfulness of espionage as well as sabotage past times what Henry Landau 1 time called “the Enemy Within,” a contingent of High German Americans suspected of beingness to a greater extent than loyal to the Fatherland than to their novel homeland.

Posters as well as pamphlets produced past times the Committee on Public Information during the years of U.S. interest inward World War I clit High German armed services aggression equally an external threat, geographically distant but never completely removed from the North American continent.


In 1 such poster the High German soldier is a fell giant belongings a rifle as well as bayonet as well as stomping around a war-torn Europe; Europe as well as the rampaging Hun are separated from the Statue of Liberty, as well as the field it represents, past times entirely a sparse strip of water.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 minute poster presents the U.S. infantry marching off to bring together the battle equally the modern equivalent to medieval knights riding off to struggle inward a holy state of war against the infidel. World War I was hence regularly presented inward the USA equally a necessary as well as only state of war against an external threat.

However, in that location was besides an emerging feel of a threat from within, a fearfulness of espionage as well as sabotage that grew out of the large reveal of unassimilated, politically organized High German Americans living inward the USA inward the early on decades of the twentieth century. Many of these High German Americans continued to purpose their native natural language inward daily life as well as to define themselves as well as their communities against mainstream U.S. culture.

German American Culture

In the nineteenth century, a pluralistic Germanlanguage civilization had existed inward the United States; equally slow equally 1910, an estimated nine 1 grand m people inward the USA yet spoke High German equally their native tongue.

They formed the wide footing for readership of a large diverseness of German-language newspapers as well as publications as well as supplied membership for German-language clubs as well as parishes equally good equally the National German-American Alliance (1901–1918), an arrangement that actively opposed U.S. entry into World War I. These many speakers of High German were besides the strength behind attempts at offering High German equally a linguistic communication of instruction, or at to the lowest degree equally a unusual linguistic communication elective, inward populace schools.

Although past times 1910 the High German linguistic communication was already beingness displaced past times English linguistic communication amid the younger generation, World War I drew a abrupt cutoff trouble for High German linguistic communication didactics inward the entire country. In 1919, High German linguistic communication didactics was forbidden inward several states, including Indiana as well as Nebraska. In Nebraska v. Meyer, the Supreme Court conclusion inward 1923, this ban was overturned.

The activity of the origin one-half of Willa Cather’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of 1922, One of Ours, is laid close the urban centre of Frankfort, Nebraska, as well as dramatizes the novel distrust toward High German Americans growing out of the tensions that peaked alongside the nation’s entry into war. In mass 3 of Cather’s novel, a accuse of disloyalty is brought against ii established High German immigrant farmers.

The show presented past times the neighbors against the ii men is “confused as well as most humorous,” yet the justice decides the instance against them as well as assigns a fine. In after sections of the novel, Cather continues to present her sympathy for High German Americans inward her depiction of ii older women persecuted past times their to a greater extent than thoroughly assimilated neighbors.

Suspected Acts of Sabotage

Even earlier the USA officially entered the war, in that location were suspicious fires as well as explosions at a reveal of U.S. plants as well as furnish terminals. In Jan 1915, as well as so 1 time to a greater extent than inward Nov of the same year, burn consumed the Roebling works life inward Trenton, New Jersey, where armaments as well as antisubmarine netting for the Allied powers were manufactured.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 laid of explosions, likewise attributed past times many to High German saboteurs, occurred inward early on Jan 1917 inward munitions plants inward Kingsland, New Jersey. The most spectacular of such explosions was the “Black Tom” incident of thirty July 1916.

More than 2 1 grand m pounds of munitions stored on Black Tom Island inward New York Harbor exploded; the explosion as well as the resulting burn caused enormous harm as well as killed 3 men as well as a child. These munitions were awaiting shipment to the Allies for purpose against Germany. The incident has hence been viewed past times many equally an human activity of sabotage past times High German agents.

With Congress’s proclamation of state of war against Federal Republic of Federal Republic of Germany on half-dozen Apr 1917 came stringent controls to forestall farther acts of sabotage. These included the issuing of ii “Alien Enemy Presidential Proclamations” as well as the establishing of internment camps for people of High German nascency residing inward the USA who had non completed the naturalization process.

Suspicions of an violet High German conspiracy bring largely faded from populace consciousness along alongside the to a greater extent than full general cultural retention of World War I, but related conspiracy theories—particularly those involving the Lusitania as well as the Zimmerman telegram—are yet inward circulation.

The Black Tom explosion is mayhap the exception, equally it has been the champaign of written report of several recent, highly speculative studies as well as has gained novel relevance alongside the September xi assault on the World Trade Center, which sent the USA scrambling anew to uncover networks of saboteurs as well as those who fund them.

Within ii weeks of the World Trade Center’s destruction, a invitee columnist at ABQjournal reminded his readers that September 11 may non bring been the origin fourth dimension the urban centre was bombed past times agents of a unusual power: “N.Y. Was Attacked past times Terrorists inward 1916.”

Freemasonry

Freemasonry

Claims close the Freemasons’ far-reaching influence as well as subversive aims have got played a component division inward about of America’s most enduring conspiracy theories. The Order of Free as well as Accepted Masons, an all-male fraternal organization, has had chapters on the North American continent since the 1730s, as well as has featured prominently inward U.S. conspiracy thinking since the belatedly eighteenth century.

Conspiracy theory close the Freemasons points to the semisecretive nature of the scheme as well as the acknowledged political involvement of many of its members to back upward the allegation that the Freemasons are an extremely powerful as well as wealthy cabal of antireligious subversives who have got infiltrated trouble concern as well as authorities structures worldwide.

Historical Origins

The history of Freemasonry tin live hard to trace, inward component division because many of the sources available are markedly biased. Masonic historians claim that exclusively Freemasons, who have got been initiated into the secrets of the order, tin accurately write its history as well as accuse that non-Masonic scholars are ofttimes swayed past times anti-Masonic sentiment.

Conversely, those who oculus conspiracy theories on Masonry struggle that Freemasons have got participated inward massive cover-ups of their ain activities, which brand the trouble of the “truth-seeking” historian arduous, if non perilous.


Both Masonic historians as well as many anti-Masonic conspiracy theorists assert that the roots of the monastic enjoin engagement dorsum to antiquity, though most third-party historians dispute this claim. The craftsmen’s guild on which the present-day fraternal society was based can, indeed, live traced dorsum to the medieval era.

Some of the fraternal society’s characteristic features, such every bit its ritual initiation as well as hugger-mugger signs of membership, tin also live accounted for past times the nature of masonry every bit a profession; members sought to protect their condition past times developing elaborate forms as well as rituals to ascertain eligibility as well as proclaim membership, as well as since masons tended to live itinerant laborers, they created signs, such every bit the muchtouted “secret handshake,” inward monastic enjoin to assure recognition of guild membership.

The mythology embraced past times Masonic tradition, however, reaches dorsum to a greater extent than than 5,000 years to encompass the architect of Solomon’s Temple, Hiram, who is said to have got been murdered because he would non let on the secrets of Masonry. Some historians also link the Freemasons to the Knights Templar, a crusading monastic monastic enjoin outlawed past times the papacy inward the fourteenth century.

While pro-Masonic historians tend to elaborate a long history of anti-Masonic persecution, conspiracy thinkers reckon inward the same narrative a history of hugger-mugger conspiratorial plots that occasionally come upward to light, but that have got never been fully exposed or interrupted.

Freemasonry step

Notwithstanding these competitor accounts of Freemasonry’s past, most historians exterior the debate empathize the fraternal monastic enjoin of Freemasons to have got emerged inward United Kingdom of Great Britain as well as Northern Ireland inward the early on eighteenth century.

These historians distinguish “nonoperative” or “speculative” Freemasonry every bit a fraternal monastic enjoin whose component division is primarily social, from the much older craftsmen’s guild that served professional person functions as well as which they term “operative” Masonry. “Nonoperative” Masons were attracted to the guild past times its combination of rationalist/scientific query as well as deep abide by for tradition as well as fellowship.

Eventually, every bit the guild scheme died out as well as every bit “speculative” membership grew, the scheme came nether the leadership of the nonoperatives as well as was transformed into the modern order. Membership of the Freemasons grew speedily inward the eighteenth century; the scheme spread across Europe as well as into the North American colonies, alongside the offset American lodges forming shortly after 1730.

Conspiratorial Accusations inward the Eighteenth Century

The offset century of Freemasonry saw explosive growth inward the popularity of the monastic enjoin on both the European as well as North American continents, fueled past times widespread involvement inward the Enlightenment ideas upon which the monastic enjoin based its cardinal tenets and, especially on the American continent, past times the perceived social advantages of membership.

As membership grew, as well as then did world suspicion of the order. As early on every bit the 1720s, charges of immorality as well as lewdness were levied against the Freemasons. Since the proceedings of Masonic gatherings were secret, nonmembers could non uncovering out what the organization really did during their meetings as well as dinners.

Critics claimed that Masons habitually overindulged inward alcohol, as well as many also insisted that the all-male meetings were footling to a greater extent than than majority orgies, at which sodomy as well as ritual flagellation were practiced. These complaints did not, inward themselves, amount to charges of conspiracy, although afterward conspiracy theories adapted as well as reiterated them.

The earliest joint of Freemasonry every bit a conspiracy came from the Roman Catholic Church, which claimed that the monastic enjoin intended to undermine the Church as well as its teachings. The Church’s organized opposition to Freemasonry began inward 1738, inward the shape of a papal bull issued past times Clement XII, which condemned Freemasonry as well as excommunicated all Masons. Numerous other bulls issued inward the next decades denounced the secretive practices of the monastic enjoin as well as declared it an enemy of Christianity.

Masonic chapters were also intermittently defendant of political conspiracy inward Europe. During the 1730s as well as 1740s, Masonic meetings were interrupted as well as fifty-fifty banned, as well as members of lodges were interrogated past times law inward Holland, France, as well as elsewhere, every bit nation forces came to suspect the scheme of subversive political aims as well as antiroyalist beliefs.

The Enlightenment ideals of religious pluralism as well as private freedom embraced past times the scheme increased church building as well as nation suspicion of Freemasonry inward the eighteenth century; it was argued that the conspiratorial actions of the grouping were exactly the logical extension of its radical philosophies.

Conspiracy thinking close Freemasonry on the American continent drew upon all of these charges, though early on American Freemasons tended to live the target of mockery to a greater extent than than of sustained investigation. In the offset one-half of the eighteenth century, American Masonic lodges, to a greater extent than often than non less concerned alongside Enlightenment thought than many European lodges, functioned primarily every bit social clubs.

Following the pattern set past times British lodges, they often rejected membership applications from individuals who did non brand an “independent” living, excluding a sizeable part of the colonial middle classes. After 1750, many of those rejected began to ready their ain Masonic lodges, known every bit “Ancient” Freemasons.

Members of these lodges were strongly inclined to the colonial cause, spell members of the older lodges (dubbed “Moderns” past times the “Ancients”) often tended to loyalism, though neither grouping took an official stance. Nevertheless, the Masonic affiliation of many key players during the American Revolution led the monastic enjoin to seat itself, inward the post-Revolutionary period, alongside the substance values of the novel Republic.

At the 1793 dedication of the U.S. Capitol, for instance, President George Washington wore Masonic garb as well as performed a modified Masonic ritual during the ceremony, assisted past times other Masonic brethren; a silvery plate set over the cornerstone located the dedication inward the 13th twelvemonth of American independence as well as the 5,793rd twelvemonth of Masonic history.

Conspiracy thinkers also indicate to the incorporation of Masonic symbolism inward the pattern of the Great Seal of the U.S.A. every bit proof that Freemasonic influence on authorities was pervasive inward this period; however, Freemasons deny that the all-seeing oculus atop the pyramid is a specifically Masonic symbol, although it resembles about pattern elements used past times Masons.

Even every bit Earth profile of U.S. Freemasonry improved inward the 1790s, the offset major moving ridge of conspiracy thinking close Masonry was cresting inward Europe. John Robison’s exposé, Proofs of a Conspiracy against All Religions as well as Governments of Europe, published inward 1798, set the blame for the French Revolution on the Freemasons, who, he claimed, had been thoroughly infiltrated as well as corrupted past times a supposedly atheistic hugger-mugger society known every bit the Illuminati, which was founded past times Adam Weishaupt, a Jesuit priest, inward 1776.

Weishaupt became a Freemason inward 1777 as well as believed that Freemasonry could assist him to spread Illuminati beliefs, which were based on Enlightenment thought. Those who raised the alert over the Illuminati charged that the extent to which they had infiltrated as well as transformed Masonry was unknown. Robison’s piece of employment raised an alert inward the United States.

Congregationalist government minister as well as Federalist supporter Jedidiah Morse was amidst those who publicly denounced the conspiracy, which he represented every bit a grave threat to the immature republic. Others, such every bit Timothy Dwight, president of Yale University, joined inward the growing alarm. Morse insisted he did non hateful to condemn all Freemasons; rather, he insisted, it was exclusively “Illuminized Masonry” that he meant to warn against.

Morse, a Federalist, claimed that the conspirators planned to brand inroads onto the American continent through the Jeffersonian party. Other Federalists took upward the charges, as well as fifty-fifty Masonic blood brother George Washington admitted to concern over the unsafe presence of “Illuminized Masonry” inward the United States.

Anti-Federalists denied links to hugger-mugger societies as well as responded alongside conspiracy charges of their own, such every bit Abraham Bishop, who, inward Proofs of a Conspiracy against Christianity, as well as the Government of the U.S.A. (1802), charged Robison alongside royalist sympathies as well as defendant his supporters of seeking to undermine U.S. democracy.

“Illuminized” Masonry remains a cardinal subject inward present-day conspiracy theory close the Freemasons, but the Federalist-era disceptation did non tarnish the icon of Freemasonry amidst most members of the post-Revolutionary middle as well as elite classes. On the contrary, the upper levels of U.S. society, as well as those who aspired to bring together them, were increasingly drawn to Freemasonry.

The rigid identification of the monastic enjoin alongside key American values enhanced Freemasonry’s popularity inward the post-Revolutionary United States; fifty-fifty to a greater extent than importantly, the monastic enjoin served increasingly useful networking functions inward a acre that was actively rebuilding its ain political as well as social infrastructure. Masonic membership was associated alongside condition as well as power; accordingly, those seeking condition as well as ability also sought to travel Masons.

Anti-Masonic Movement

The identification of the Masonic monastic enjoin alongside the nation’s most powerful as well as influential citizens drew increasing suspicion inward the offset component division of the nineteenth century, culminating inward the offset national anti-Masonic motion inward the belatedly 1820s as well as early on 1830s.

In contrast to the alert raised inward the wake of Robison’s book, which, for the most part, confined itself to members of the clergy as well as authorities officials, the anti-Masonic motion of this menstruation was a truly populist movement.

The motion was touched off past times the abduction as well as suspected murder of William Morgan, who was inward the procedure of publishing an exposé of Freemasonry, inward 1826. When his abductors received low-cal sentences, many charged that a cover-up was inward process.

The reformist motion that developed inward the wake of the Morgan thing claimed that Freemasons were anti-Christian as well as antidemocratic, that they deliberately sought ability as well as conspired to elevate the social seat of Masons, as well as that, if unchecked, their growth would have got disastrous consequences for the immature nation.

They supported this claim past times pointing out that hugger-mugger societies were on the rise; for instance, a Massachusetts congregationalist, the Reverend Peter Sanborn, argued inward 1829 that a hugger-mugger alliance existed betwixt Freemasons as well as Phi Beta Kappa. Noting that upward to a tertiary of college-educated men were yearly inducted into the hugger-mugger accolade society, Sanborn argued that a subversive plot supported past times educated youth as well as well-placed older Masons would destroy the nation. In response, inward 1831 Phi Beta Kappa abandoned its hugger-mugger practices.

The anti-Masonic motion also argued that Freemasonry undermined spousal human relationship past times forcing husbands to maintain secrets from wives, who were non allowed to have got component division inward Masonic proceedings. Women, alienated past times the all-male order, joined the anti-Masonic motion inward meaning numbers.

Suspicion of Masonic practices led to the formation of an Anti-Masonic Party, the offset major independent U.S. tertiary party, inward 1827. The political party held its offset national convention inward 1830 as well as inward 1832 ran a candidate for president against the Masonic incumbent, Andrew Jackson. After 1833, the political party withdrew every bit an active forcefulness inward national politics, focusing on nation as well as local-level campaigns. The motion continued to decline inward the belatedly 1830s as well as the political party had disbanded past times 1843.

During the years of the anti-Masonic crusade as well as its aftermath, national membership inward the Freemasons declined significantly, as well as the menstruation saw the formation of a number of competitor fraternal organizations such every bit the Odd Fellows. However, past times the 1850s, Masonic membership was over again on the rise. During this decade as well as especially after the Civil War, the Freemasons reformed their reputation as well as regained much of their old prestige.

Changes inward the organization’s self-presentation implicitly addressed about of the charges of conspiracy thinkers; the novel Masonry professed Christianity, refuting claims that they sought to undermine organized religion, as well as countered claims of self-interest as well as greed past times actively promoting charity. Masons also responded to the long-standing objections to the all-male nature of the society past times forming a woman somebody order, the Order of the Eastern Star, inward 1869.

In 1867, the National Christian Association revived conspiracy charges against the Masons; their crusade led to the presidential candidacy of General John Wolcott Phelps on an anti-Masonic platform inward 1880. Phelps performed real poorly inward the polls, receiving exclusively a few hundred votes. After this campaign, anti-Masonic groups avoided electoral politics. Conspiracy charges against the Freemasons, however, travel on until the introduce day.

Conspiracy theory close the Freemasons to a greater extent than often than non does non straight engage the legacy of the Prince Hall Freemasons, an African American Masonic scheme founded inward Boston inward 1775. The African American lodge received its charter from the British Grand Lodge during the American Revolution; after the Revolution, other U.S. lodges refused to recognize the group, ostensibly on the grounds that it was non “regular” because it had been chartered past times a unusual power.

Racist as well as segregationist catch amidst many members of the Freemasons, especially inward southern lodges, prevented their recognition of the Prince Hall order; this nonrecognition lasted inward many cases until the 1990s. Prince Hall Masonry is rarely charged alongside the form of far-reaching influence as well as subversive aims of Freemasonry inward general; many conspiracy theories produce non fifty-fifty bring upward its existence.

The Present

Christian conspiracy theorists inward detail travel on to struggle that the group’s agenda is both antiChristian as well as antidemocratic. Late twentieth- as well as early on twenty-first-century conspiracy theorists reckon Freemasons every bit the key to the New World Order conspiracy. Others allege that the grouping is satanic, that it worships a goat-headed Luciferian god known every bit Baphomet, as well as that it is actively involved inward plots to covert upward UFO discoveries.

Freemasonry has been tapped every bit component division of the conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy, as well as also plays a key role inward conspiracy thinking close the Oklahoma City bombing and, to a greater extent than recently, the bombings of the World Trade Center as well as Pentagon on September 11.

In add-on to forming the oculus of many conspiracy theories, Freemasonry, every bit ane of the oldest U.S. conspiracy theories, also acts every bit an index of thinking close conspiracy. Anti-Masonic catch inward full general as well as the anti-Masonic political motion inward detail have got been cited past times mid-twentiethcentury political theorists every bit a key instance of the “paranoid style” inward U.S. politics.

These scholars struggle that such large-scale suspicion of the Freemasons, a harmless fraternal organization, reflected U.S. xenophobia as well as anxiety. More recently, about populist historians of the menstruation have got suggested that, inward fact, many Masons did possess a groovy bargain of influence as well as often used it nepotistically, if non conspiratorially.

Since the post-Revolutionary era saw a concentration of ability as well as wealth amidst the U.S. upper classes, they observe, antebellum anxiety close Masonry reflected non paranoid suspicion but a well-founded as well as legitimate concern over the unequal distribution of wealth as well as ability inward the republic.