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February 5, 2003<BR><BR> <!-- author page --><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="253" align="right"><tr><td class="fonty" vAlign="top" align="right" width="100%"> <img src="http://unknownnews.org/moonsunmyung.jpg" border="1" width="233" height="240"></td></tr></table> For more than two decades he has been a powerful and influential political figure, despite being more than a bit out of step with mainstream America. Now, perhaps thinking of his own mortality, he has become more visible, staging and sponsoring numerous events and conferences. A revivified <A HREF="http://www.nndb.com/people/745/000022679/">Rev. Sun Myung Moon</A> is planting the seeds of his political legacy -- and he's getting help from his friends in the Bush Administration.<BR><BR> On December 19, 2002, while many Americans were caught up in Trent Lott's troubles or trying to figure out what to get their mother-in-law for Christmas, the Corporation for National and Community Service announced the appointment of three managers to oversee AmeriCorps.<BR><BR> David Caprara was appointed director of AmeriCorps*VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). Caprara comes to government service having served as president of the American Family Coalition, an organization many observers say is a "front" organization for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.<BR><BR> Caprara's appointment is the latest in a series of events signifying a close relationship between the Bush Administration and the Rev. Moon's Unification Church.<BR><BR> On January 19, 2001, one day before George W. Bush was sworn in as President, the Rev. Moon sponsored a prayer luncheon that brought together some 1,700 religious, civic, and political leaders. In the crowd was a bevy of Christian Right luminaries including the Rev. Jerry Falwell; former National Evangelical Association President Don Argue; Trinity Broadcasting Network's Paul Crouch; and the Southern Baptist Convention's (SBC) president, executive committee president, and CEO, as well as Richard Land, the president of SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.<BR><BR> John Ashcroft, who had not yet been confirmed as Attorney General, dropped by and "brought down the house... with a tale of amazing grace," reported a front-page story in The Washington Times. The Rev. Moon addressed the crowd and handed out free copies of one of his books and other Unification church materials.<BR><BR> When SBC leaders discovered that the event had been sponsored by The Times -- the Moon-owned conservative newspaper that has lost money every year since its launch in 1982 -- they were surprised: "We knew that it was going to be an interdenominational event, but we had no idea that the luncheon was hosted by the Moonies," claimed one SBC spokesperson.<BR><BR> A few months later, the American Leadership Conference (ALC), a project of the American Family Coalition and The Washington Times Foundation -- both Moon-sponsored groups -- sent thousands of invitations to clergy and community leaders inviting them to attend local events called "Faith-Based Initiatives For Family and Community Renewal." According to Church & State's Rob Boston, "The flyer promised that the 'cutting edge program' would 'provide the latest information on innovative policies and programs from the Executive and Congressional leadership in Washington; and build alliances for faith-based services at the state and community level.'"<BR><BR> Boston, assistant director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, pointed out the "faith-based summit" was actually held in Washington, D.C. and down-linked by satellite to more than forty participating sites. The summit was organized by a number of leading GOP congressional figures including Bush's faith-based point-men, now former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK) and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). And, "efforts to promote it at the grassroots level were turned over to a Moon organization," which Boston writes, gave them "an official relationship with the Republican leadership" and this "enhanced status enabled him to do grassroots political organizing -- and religious recruitment -- with the apparent blessing of Bush and his GOP allies in Congress."<BR><BR> On May 21, 2002, the Rev. Moon hosted a gala 20th anniversary celebration for The Washington Times at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The Times reported the following day that "more than 3,000 congressmen, state legislators and business and religious leaders from across the country" attended and heard country music singer Randy Travis and radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger, who delivered the keynote address. One of the highlights of the evening was the reading of a congratulatory message from President Bush, who called The Times "a distinguished source of information and opinion" and "a forum for the debate of timely issues."<BR><BR> The SBC's antipathy over the Rev. Moon's sponsorship of the prayer event and the Republican Party's dependence on its organizing skills are indicative of the longtime love/hate relationship Christian evangelicals and GOP operatives have had with the Unification Church. (Boston recently told me that the "baggage associated with the Unification Church has created problems for the church over time, so they formed the more family-friendly-sounding Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.")<BR><BR> "What I find interesting about the whole Moon phenomena is what money can do for you," says Rob Boston. For more than two decades, Moon's Christian Right partners have accepted his bountiful financial support: Not too long ago, the Rev. Jerry Falwell's financially-distressed Liberty University received a gift of $3.5 million. Christian Right leaders eagerly accept lucrative speaking engagements and attractive travel packages to Moon-sponsored events and conferences.<BR><BR> And the GOP adores that <I>The Washington Times</I> serves as a daily boom-box for the right's political and social agenda.<BR><BR> There is however, the embarrassing side of the coin: The loopy mass wedding ceremonies the Rev. Moon presides over; his financial sponsorship of the Nation of Islam's Million Family March; the bad publicity garnered by the Rev.'s dysfunctional family; and the reports of teenagers enticed into joining the church and subsequently kept away from their families. And Christian right leaders are more than uncomfortable when the Rev. claims to consider himself the new Messiah, sent by God to complete the failed mission of Jesus. Dr. Massimo Introvigne, the director of the Center for the Studies of New Religions in Torino, Italy, who has tracked the Rev. Moon's international activities, told Church & State that "There is no doubt that Moon and his followers believe that he IS the Lord of the Second Advent, i.e. a Messianic figure complementary to Jesus Christ."<BR><BR> According to Rob Boston, "Moon has made numerous statements over the years implying that he is something more than a mere mortal. A passage on <A HREF="http://www.unification.net/">Moon's official website</A> states the matter plainly: 'The Christian world must confront the fact that the Messiah's second advent took place at the end of World War II, in an obscure setting,' it reads. 'As did Jesus, he met with countless difficulties, including accusation and rejection. Bearing every cross, he -- the Reverend Sun Myung Moon -- took responsibility for the failure of this generation of Christians, and he stands today as the historical victor with a worldwide following.'"<BR><BR> The Rev. Moon has been a consistent friend and supporter of the Bush family. During his run for the presidency, George the elder enjoyed unequivocal support from The Washington Times. And according to veteran reporter Robert Parry, after he left office "Moon-affiliated organizations paid for speeches by former President Bush in the United States, Asia and South America... The price tag for the speeches has been estimated at from hundreds of thousands of dollars to $10 million." During the 2000 presidential campaign the paper threw its whole-hearted support behind George W. Bush, and over the course of the past two years has consistently supported the president's agenda. <blockquote>Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His <I>Working For Change</I> column Conservative Watch documents the strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.<BR><BR><center>Published by <A HREF="http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14455">Working for Change</A></center></blockquote> <A NAME=recent></A><BR><TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="100%" border=0><TR> <TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="50%" class="fonty"> <TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="300" border=2><TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="100%" bgcolor=white class="fonty"><BR> &nbsp; <I>Recent entries:</I><BR><BR> <center><iframe src="http://www.unknownnews.org/dailylog.html" width="295" height="104" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="auto" frameborder="0"></iframe></center><BR> </TD></TR></TABLE> </TD><TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="1%" class="fonty"> </TD><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="49%" class="fonty"> <TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="300" 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HREF="http://www.unknownnews.org/about.html"><B><I>Unknown News</I></B><BR> This is who we are,<BR>what we do, and why we do it</A>. </TD><TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="middle" WIDTH="9%" BGcolor="#eeeeee" class="font13"> </TD></TR></TABLE> <BR><TABLE CELLPADDING="5" CELLSPACING="5" WIDTH="100%" border=2><TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="100%" class="fonty"> <TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="100%" border=0><TR> <TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%" class="fonta"> <A HREF="http://www.unknownnews.net/apocalypsenow.html">Rapture radicals:<BR>President Bush, the fundamentalists,<BR>and the coming apocalypse</A> </TD></TR></TABLE></TD></TR></TABLE><BR> <A NAME=daily></A><BR> <TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="100%" border=2><TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="100%" class="fonty"> <TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="100%" border=0><TR><TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="100%" class="fonty"><TABLE CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" border=0><TR><TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%" BGcolor=white class="fonty"> <center><iframe src="http://www.unknownnews.org/dailyRSS.html" width="295" height="525" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="auto" frameborder="0"></iframe></center> </TD></TR></TABLE></TD></TR></TABLE><BR></TD></TR></TABLE> <A NAME=articles></A><BR> <TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="100%" border=2><TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="100%" bgcolor="#eeeeee" class="fonty"> <TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="100%" border=0><TR><TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" bgcolor="#eeeeee" WIDTH="100%" class="fonty"><TABLE CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" border=0><TR><TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%" BGcolor="#eeeeee" class="fonty"> <center><iframe src="http://www.unknownnews.org/articles.html" width="295" height="525" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="auto" frameborder="0"></iframe></center> </TD></TR></TABLE></TD></TR></TABLE><BR></TD></TR></TABLE> <A NAME=wdwb></A><BR> <TABLE CELLPADDING="8" CELLSPACING="8" WIDTH="300" border=2><TR> <TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="300" bgcolor="#eeeeee" class="fonty"> <center><A HREF=#wdwb><BIG><font color=blue><B>What we believe</B></FONT></BIG></A></center><BR> We believe in liberty and justice for all, so of course, we oppose many US government policies. This doesn't mean we're anti-American, redneck scum, pinko commies, militia members, or terrorist-sympathizers. It means we believe in freedom, as more than merely a cliché. <BR><BR> We believe you have the right to live your own life as you choose, and others have the equal right to live <I>their</I> lives as <I>they</I> choose. It's not complicated.<BR><BR>We believe freedom leads to peace, progress, and prosperity, while its opposite -- oppression -- leads to war, terrorism, poverty, and misery. <BR><BR> We believe it's preposterously stupid to hate people because of their appearance, their race or nationality, their religion or lack of religion, how they have sex with other consenting adults, etc. There are far more apropos reasons to hate most people. <BR><BR> We believe in questioning ourselves, our assumptions, each other -- and we especially believe in questioning authority (the more authority, the more questions). We believe obedience is a fine quality in dogs and young children, but not in adults. <BR><BR> Like America's right-wingers, we believe in individual responsibility, hard work to get ahead, and stern punishment for serious crimes. We believe big government should not be blindly trusted.<BR><BR> But unlike most right-wing leaders, we mean it. <BR><BR> Like America's left-wingers, we believe in equal treatment under law, war as a last (not first) resort, and sensible stewardship of natural resources. We believe big business should not be blindly trusted.<BR><BR>But unlike most left-wing leaders, we mean it. <BR><BR> Like libertarians, we believe it's wrong and <I>reprehensible</i> to arrest people for what they think, believe, look like, wear, eat, smoke, drink, inhale, inject, or otherwise do to themselves. <BR><BR> But unlike many libertarians, we're not obsessed with the gold standard, we don't believe incorporation is humanity's highest achievement, and we don't believe everything in life comes down to dollars and cents. We've read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels, but we understand that they're works of fiction.<BR><BR> We're skeptical, and we're sick of so-called 'journalists' who aren't skeptical at all. <BR><BR>A reader asks, what are our solutions? We propose no solutions except common sense, which is never common. We like the principles of democracy, and the ideals broadly described as 'American'. The US Constitution is a fine and workable framework for solutions, when it's actually read and thoughtfully understood by intelligent statesmen and women. So, no manifestos from us. We don't dream that big, and if there's one thing the world <i>doesn't</i> need it's yet another manifesto.<BR><BR>Our suggestion is: think. A fact-based instead of faith-based approach leads to solutions for most of the recurring issues of our time, from abortion to global climate change, pollution to universal health care, careful but real regulation of industry and economy, hunger, war, terror, human rights for humans not for corporations, science not religious doctrine in public schools, equal protection and prosecution under law, etc. Approach problems without glorifying stupidity, without demonizing intelligence, and answers usually come into focus. <BR><BR> These pages are published by <A HREF="http://www.unknownnews.net/bighowdy.html">Harry and Helen Highwater</A>, happily married low-income nom de plumes and rabble-rousers from Madison, Wisconsin (with a few friends scattered around the world helping out). <BR><BR> We try to spotlight news that hasn't gotten enough (or appropriate) attention in American media, along with our opinions and yours. <BR><BR> We bang our keyboards against the wall, because it doesn't hurt as much as banging our heads. <BR><BR><center><A HREF="http://www.unknownnews.org/bighowdy.html"><img src="http://www.unknownnews.net/Highwaters-oldtime.jpg" border="3" width="199" height="277"></A></center><BR> <DIV align="right"><i>Helen &amp; Harry Highwater</i> &nbsp; <BR><BR> <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #dddddd">&nbsp;&nbsp;(from <A HREF="http://www.unknownnews.org/about.html">About <I>Unknown News</i></A>)&nbsp;&nbsp;</SPAN></div> </TD></TR></TABLE> <BR><BR> <center><script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-2996608746973398"; google_ad_width = 300; google_ad_height = 250; google_ad_format = "300x250_as"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_ad_channel = ""; google_color_border = "8B0000"; google_color_bg = "FFFFFF"; google_color_link = "000000"; google_color_text = "000000"; google_color_url = "0000FF"; //--> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></center><BR> </TD><TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="10" BGcolor="#eeeeee" class="fonttnr"> </TD> </TR></TABLE> </body> </html>