[blam]

The John Birch Society was originally headquarted in Maine.
After Joe's death, they moved the headquarters to Appleton, Wisconsin, Joe's hometown. I often wondered if there was a connection.

[SergeiRachmaninov]

Don't know...really don't know anything about the Birchers, who were actively getting smeared when I was just coming of political age in the Goldwater era. I believe that Barry's running mate, was accused of being "a Bircher."

The smear of the Birchers was so overwhelming that -- at that time -- that I was still too naive to question it. After all, if the God of broadcast journalism, Edward R. Murrow, said it, it surely must be true. ~sarcasm~ (I don't particularly have any memory of Murrow commenting on the Birchers...I just cite him as a representative media figure who posed as someone beyond question, when, in fact, he was a fierce ideological partisan.)

I hope young people today are not as naively vulnerable to these propped up MSM figures as I was, and I don't think they are. As depressing as things looks sometimes, it is a different world from the days when the MSM could easily shutdown conservative voices.