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Mar 11 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
After you watch this, you need to go listen to Season 1 of “The Dream” podcast which is all about the history of Multi-level marketing and its ties to right wing, anti-communist politics in the US.
One interesting thing I’ve learned during my archival research on Walter Huss, the far right activist who became chair of the OR GOP in 1978, is that he participated in about a dozen MLMs in the 70s and 80s. It was probably his primary source of income.
One of the nation’s earliest MLM pyramid schemes was Holiday Magic, started by this John Bircher ultra conservative who ran against Reagan in 1966 *from Reagan’s right.* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_P…
Seriously, this podcast is fantastic. You should listen to it. slate.com/business/2018/…
Big thanks to @mcklann for clueing me in to the brilliance of The Dream.

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More from @SethCotlar

Seth Cotlar Profile picture
Mar 12
Here's a conservative magazine in 1976 selling itself to readers as a refreshing and more trustworthy alternative to an overly liberal "mainstream media" that hated America. The publisher of that magazine was the John Birch Society. Image
FWIW, in 1976 the head of the JBS, Robert Welch, believed that the world was run by a conspiracy with its roots in the Bavarian Illuminati. He expected that conspiracy to destroy America and set up a UN-run One World Government in 1976, but that prediction didn't come true.
When it didn't come true, he credited the John Birch Society with successfully staving off that One World Government takeover, at least for the time being. So yeah, clearly a more reliable news source than Time or Newsweek.
Read 7 tweets
Seth Cotlar Profile picture
Mar 12
Found the cover art for Ben Gibbard's new album. Image
I ran across this in the papers of an Oregon far right evangelical, Walter Huss. He had it because he was doing oppo research on the group to try to get this religious group's tax exempt status revoked for being too political.
Huss was a Foursquare preacher who, from the 1960s into the 90s, used conservative churches across the state to help promote right wing political campaigns. Whenever he experienced pushback or criticism for his theocratic politics, he of course screamed "tyranny!"
Read 6 tweets
Seth Cotlar Profile picture
Mar 11
What did Arnold Palmer, Alistair Cooke, Alex Trebek, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Norman Podhoretz, Charlton Heston, Barry Goldwater, Richard DeVos, Saul Bellow, Jacques Barzun, Saul Bellow, and Midge Dector have in common in 1996? [Answer in next tweet].
They all served on this Board of Directors. Image
The organization was US ENGLISH, a group that sought to make English the national language and stave off the perceived threat of a multi-lingual America. Image
Read 5 tweets
Seth Cotlar Profile picture
Mar 10
Compiling a list of the types of people who never have to self-censor. Who did I miss?
--Monarchs and other assorted autocrats
--abusive bosses with a captive workforce
--Assholes with inherited wealth
--People who never leave their extremely homogenous social bubbles
Genuinely struggling to understand why anyone would want to inhabit a world where self-censorship was NOT a widely-shared value.
Perhaps it's not a coincidence that the enemies of self-censorship are often those who embrace a political philosophy that has no place in it for the concept of "society?"
Read 4 tweets
Seth Cotlar Profile picture
Mar 10
As someone who follows the farther right reaches of the GOP (where most of the energy and activism in the party is these days), it seems pretty clear that once (if?) Roe is gone, the next target will be Obergefell.
A significant number of current GOP voters are fine with same sex marriage, but a very loud and active fraction of the GOP has never accepted Obergefell as legitimate.
Just as anti-choice slowly became a mandatory position in the GOP over a few decades, landing us where we are today...I fear that anti-Obergefell will shift from being a "debatable" position within GOP ranks to being something one must either eagerly condone or just accept.
Read 5 tweets
Seth Cotlar Profile picture
Mar 9
Citing wicked Republicans who are using “Communist psychological warfare tactics” against him, Oregon GOP chair Dallas Heard resigns, but vows to continue his fight against “the godless Left.” IOW, Republicans in disarray.
A former county GOP chair and close associate of former state Rep. Mike Nearman posted the news with an “I told you so” about the unnamed Communists who have apparently been working to take over the Oregon GOP for a while now.
This is the entirety of the “evidence” provided to substantiate the claim of Communist takeover.
Read 11 tweets

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