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neglected for a while; this is tag

bit lost?

kerpen zombie --> grover

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MPU LONG INTERVIEW

Oct 21, 2026

We sat down with Grover Norquist, Ronald Reagan’s anti-tax warrior and the man behind the GOP’s pledge to never raise taxes. We asked why he calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme, and why Elon Musk pays a lower tax rate than you. Producers: Faiz Shakir

WELFARE DEPENDENCY ; FREEDOM LIBERTY;

We Found The Man Who Shaped How You Pay Taxes (And Why The Rich Don't)

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-lussier/nine-questions-with-grove_b_8886340.html

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Grover Norquist, unknown to most Americans, is the conservative boogeyman of the progressive big-government spending liberal left who vilify his defense of the American taxpayer.

In 2016, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump battle to face Hillary Clinton, to be elected the next President, and headlines continue to declare Americans for Tax Reform‘sGrover Norquist as some version of the “most hated man in Washington,” or “Most powerful man in Washington D.C”.

Lately columns tease a shakeup in traditional power orthodoxy, as they declare Trump is able to break Grover’s control, trumpets Salon.com: “How Donald Trump could break the anti-tax crusader’s stranglehold on the GOP”. The NewYorker.com says Norquist is the Republican Party’s “Ringleader,” and WashingtonPost opinion piece muses “Nearly all the GOP candidates bow down to Grover Norquist.”

I met Grover at his Invite-Only “Wednesday Meeting”, a weekly gathering of more than 150 conservatives fighting to stop the overreach of Federal Government and Washington D.C. machine from snuffing out the free-market economy.

Norquist unapologetically defends himself to 60 Minutes, reminding viewers it’s the voters that are the power holders because they are the ones that throw out politicians that violate the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.” The pledge is a candidate’s promise to citizens not to add new or more, (or overall raise) taxes on hard-working voters. The ATR office has display wall of politicians his movement has defeated. Politician who violate their pledge to fight for voters against more taxes have seen defeat in their re-election bids. Watch the segment titled The Pledge: Grover Norquist’s hold on the GOP.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

LUSSIER: What drives you?

NORQUIST: A desire to secure and expand individual liberty here in America and, through our example, the world.

LUSSIER: What comes first to you and why: Faith, family or country?

NORQUIST: I believe the right to liberty is divinely inspired, that America is the first and best example and opportunity to fully become a successful free society and that this is best for my family. I can argue that in reverse. Chicken/egg.

LUSSIER: Who is your favorite historical person and why?

NORQUIST: George Washington. He made it happen. He could have lost the war of independence. He could have become king. He did not win perfect freedom....slavery...women’s rights...but he moved the ball forward and created the possibility and likelihood of victory in the future. He is the model for successfully defending and expanding liberty given the circumstances of the day.

LUSSIER: What is your favorite hobby?

NORQUIST: Reading historically based murder mysteries. Stand-up comedy.

LUSSIER: Who/what has been the biggest influence on your life?

NORQUIST: Parents. Warren and Carol Norquist.

LUSSIER: What public figure do you most admire/respect and why?

NORQUIST: Ronald Reagan for creating the modern Republican party committed to principle rather than a regional party of the North.

LUSSIER: If you could have dinner with any famous person dead or alive who would it be and why

NORQUIST: Julius Caesar...What were the plans for marching East? Why? Tell me about Cleopatra.

LUSSIER: What was the last song you sang? Where were you?

NORQUIST: I sing to my daughters almost daily. It embarrasses them greatly. That is the point.

LUSSIER: Where do you see yourself one year from now, and five years from now?

NORQUIST: I intend to run Americans for Tax Reform until we have reduced the size and scope of the central government by half. That will take 25 years.

LUSSIER: If you buried a time capsule, what would you put in it for others to find 100 years from now?

NORQUIST: A picture of my family. A book I wrote, “Leave Us Alone” a timeless argument for how to win and protect liberty.

LUSSIER: If there was no monetary cost involved, would you go on the one-way trip to Mars?

NORQUIST: No.

LUSSIER: What message would you like to leave for the youth in our country? 

NORQUIST: Grow up. Join the adult world quickly. To not extend adolescence or childhood. Peter Pan was not the hero of that story.

LUSSIER: What do you want your legacy to be? 

NORQUIST: Structures in place to continue to fight to limit government and protect liberty.

LUSSIER: What moment in your life defined your future? 

NORQUIST: The decisions to take a job with the National Taxpayers Union right after graduating from College. All flowed from that.

LUSSIER: Are there any parts of your life you would like to “do over”? 

NORQUIST: I often thought that through college. Usually after breaking up with a woman. But two years later I decided that any “do over” would have made today’s successes unlikely or impossible. And I would have missed my wife.

LUSSIER: What’s one of the funniest things that ever happened to you? 

NORQUIST: Getting locked inside Kruger National Park in South Africa (a 19,000 square kilometer game reserve) when it closed at night....driving down dark roads past hyenas and other wildlife... funny now .... not as funny then.

LUSSIER: What’s on your iPod/iPhone/Name your 5 favorite songs or bands? 

NORQUIST: Deep Purple. Janis Joplin. Green Onions.

LUSSIER: What is your favorite meal? 

NORQUIST: Chicken and.....

LUSSIER: What is your favorite time of the day?

NORQUIST: 5:00 a.m. I write then. The day is before me. I haven’t yet wasted any time or screwed anything up. A time of hope, planning, anticipation and uninterrupted work.

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http://www.wri-irg.org/node/2284

Child Soldiers: Angola report

01 May 2001 — warresisters

Coalition to stop the use of child soldiers

National Recruitment Legislation

Article 152 of Angola's 1992 Constitution(3) declares that: "1. The defence of the country shall be the right and the highest indeclinable duty of every citizen. 2. Military service shall be compulsory. The manner in which it is fulfilled shall be established by law." Conscription was reintroduced in 1993 and the former law on military service(4) was replaced by the law 1/93 on 26 March 1993 and its subsequent decree of application.(5) Military service was made compulsory for all men aged between 20 and 45. In the 1996 Decree, the minimum age for voluntary recruitment was fixed at 18 years for men and 20 years for women.(6) In November 1998, the Council of Ministers approved the compulsory conscription of Angolans born in 1981.(7) This means that the minimum age for conscription has been lowered from 18 to 17 years.

National Recruitment Practice

"Between 1980 and 1988, in Angola, every third child has been involved in military operations and many have fired a gun at another human being."(8)

Children have been recruited and used as soldiers throughout the Angolan conflict. After the Lusaka Peace Accord in 1994 soldiers from both government and UNITA forces were officially demobilized. A total of 8,500 child soldiers(9) were registered (children comprised 12 per cent of UNITA troops gathered in the 15 Quartering Areas), but this figure greatly underestimates the scale of the problem since many soldiers had been recruited as children but had reached 18 by the time of registration.(10) By the end of March 1997, only 2,336 child soldiers had been demobilized and over 50 per cent of the total had deserted the Quartering Areas.(11) "I didn't want to join the Army, they made me join", says Francisco, a 17-year-old Private in the Angolan armed forces, as he explains how soldiers burst into his home on a night three years ago in the interior province of Bie and took him away. "All these years, all I have wanted to do is go home. Now finally, I am going back to Bie to see my family and work with my father on his farm." (12)

According to the Government, no one below the age of 18 years is being recruited but non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international organisations operating in Angola testify to the contrary. It is reported, for example, that forced recruitment of youth ('Rusgas') continued even after the reintroduction of conscription in 1993. Such recruitment no longer takes place in Luanda but in some of the suburbs and throughout the country, especially in rural areas.(13) It has been claimed that military commanders have paid police officers to find new recruits. Children as young as 14 have been forced to enlist.(14) It is estimated by one confidential source that there are currently more than 3,000 child soldiers in the Angolan armed forces (FAA), although UNICEF claimed that in 1997 there were 520 children in the FAA.

Following the lowering of the age of conscription in November 1998, the military census of all male Angolans born between 1 January 1979 and 31 December 1981 started on 18 January 1999 after a statement of the Minister of Defence, General Pedro Sebastião.(15) The call-up came the day after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced his plan to withdraw the UN peacekeeping force from Angola. The young men have been gathered at an office near Luanda Airport to register. Under existing legislation women between 20 and 45 years of age may also be called up, but they are actually not recruited.(16)

It has been reported that wealthy Angolans have sent their children of draft age overseas to avoid army service. Furthermore, corrupt authorities were accepting money in return for official draft exemption, even though the Minister of Defence had publicly declared that "the defence of the motherland is a duty from which no Angolan citizen should be exempted".(17) Angolan news organisations have been specifically warned by a letter from the Minister of Social Communications, not to incite young men to oppose the country's compulsory military draft registration.(18)

One source, requesting confidentiality, has asserted that boys in their early teens are still being rounded up and deployed. There are said to be very high desertion rates for these children, though it is not clear whether they are able to make it home. The same source claims that where very young children are initially recruited, they are 'thrown back' as the receiving military commanders do not want them.

Paido, an Angolan now 24 years of age, described the Angolan style of recruitment in an interview published in the New York Times at the beginning of 1999. "I was walking with two girls. And they called me. I was too close to them, so I couldn't run. Even though my identification card said I was underage - and that was true - I was big, they insisted I was old enough, and they grabbed me and took me to a police station. It was full of kids. (...) " "They put me in a cell with the other kids, while the cops went to get trucks. When they capture you they immediately send you to the provinces for training, far away where you don't know anyone. I was very lucky. A neighbour saw me being taken and told my mother. My uncle is a policeman, and he talked to the station commander. When the rest of the guys were loaded on the trucks, my uncle got me out." New York Times, 20 January 1999.

Child Participation in Armed Conflict

Civil war has been the norm since the independence from Portugal on 11 November 1975. Following a cease-fire agreement in May 1991 (the Bicesse Accord) between the government and the insurgent National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), in October 1992 renewed fighting started in much of the countryside. A second cease-fire agreement, the Lusaka Protocol, was signed between the two warring parties on 20 November 1994. This peace accord provided for the integration of former UNITA insurgents into the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). Military integration began in June 1996 and a Government of National Unity and Reconciliation was installed in April 1997. A 7,200-strong UN peacekeeping force (MONUA) was set up to monitor the implementation of the Lusaka Protocol.

In May 1997 the process to extend government into UNITA-occupied areas began, but fighting between UNITA rebels and the FAA continued. As the situation continued to deteriorate a split occurred within the UNITA forces in August 1998 and a new faction calling itself the Democratic Consciousness: Platform for Renaissance and Plural Understanding became semi-public on 2 November 1998.(19) The fighting intensified in November 1998 when the government launched an offensive against UNITA, seeking to capture its headquarters in Andulo and Bailundo.(20) Finally, on 17 January 1999, after the shooting-down of two UN-chartered aircraft in December 1998 and the further increase in the level of hostilities in the country, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told the Security Council that there was no more peace to keep and that the UN was ending its peacekeeping operations. The 1,000 UN military, police and civilian personnel are expected to be out of Angola by 20 March 1999.

It has been reported that both Namibia and Zimbabwe have sent troops to Angola to back the Angolan armed forces in their offensive against the UNITA rebels, although there are no precise figures on the size of this support.(21) At the same time, Angola has sent troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo to support President Laurent-Désiré Kabila.(22) More recently, Angola accused Zambia and its former Defence Minister, Mr Ben Mwila, of involvement in an illegal support network for UNITA. Mr Mwila angrily denied these charges and asked for tangible evidence of these allegations.(23) On 9 February, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) offered to try to help defuse tensions between the two countries. SADC was prepared only to seek a political solution and would not send a verification mission to Zambia to verify the allegations.(24)

Armed Opposition groups (25)

*Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). It was claimed that some 10,600 of roughly 18,500 UNITA troops had been integrated into the national army and a further 24,000 or so fully-equipped troops plus an additional 35,000 soldiers were awaiting demobilisation.(26) *Following a split within UNITA in August 1998 a new faction called Democratic Consciousness: Platform for Renaissance and Plural Understanding was formed (see above). It was reported that about 4,000 UNITA soldiers had deserted and surrendered their weapons to the Angolan authorities. These men come from the UNITA breakaway faction.(27) *The Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (FLEC): this opposition group split into many factions which are currently operating within the enclave : the FLEC-FAC (FLEC-Cabindan Armed Forces) and the FLEC-Renovada. Both number about 1,500-2,000. (28)

In 1996, UNITA began demobilizing its child soldiers and had returned 2,000 children to civilian life by January 1997.(29) Yet despite pledging not to recruit children again(30) UNITA has continued to recruit great numbers of children into its ranks.(31) In 1998, the Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development (Afronet) and Human Rights Watch alleged that UNITA was abducting children and young men and women between 13 years of age and their early 30s living in border towns of Cazombo and Lumbala Nguimbo.(32) In addition, it was previously reported that in July and August 1997 Rwandan refugees, including 200 youths, were forcibly recruited when they entered areas of Angola under UNITA control.(33) According to the United States Department of State, in 1998 UNITA conducted forced recruitment, including of minors, throughout all of the country's disputed territory. Recruits were taken to isolated military camps and subjected to psychological stress and extreme hardships; those who attempted to desert were executed. Women, many as young as 13 years old, were recruited forcibly to serve as porters and camp followers, and reports of sexual assault were widespread and credible.(34) It is estimated by one confidential source that the total number of child soldiers in UNITA is currently about 3,000. A number of different sources have also stated that the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave also recruited children into their forces. The FLEC-FAC was reported to have children as young as eight years of age among its ranks (35) and that 30-40 per cent of them were girls.(36) A similar situation is believed to exist in the breakaway FLEC-Renovada.(37)

Notes

The extensive list of notes has been removed. Check their website at www.child-soldiers.org .

==

see red scorpian:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/the-nras-biggest-gun-grov_b_1107271.html

nra josh horwitz

These days, it's hardnotto noticeGrover Norquist. For the past 25 years, he has locked the Republican Party in a stranglehold with his Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) pledge that binds signatories to vote "NO" on any legislation that would increase the marginal tax rate, no matter how modestly. The pledge has been signed by95% of House and Senate Republicans in the present U.S. Congress, along with thousands of GOP politicians at the state level.

Now, Norquist can brag about using his status as the most powerful Conservative activist in Washington to puppeteer the congressional "Super Committee" proceedings. Yesterday, the committeeco-chairs announced that they failed to fulfill their mandate of forging a deficit reduction deal. All six Republican members of the Super Committee are signatories to Norquist's pledge, and the No Tax Man's GOP lackeys appear to have kept theirpromiseto Norquist to rejectanydeal that included increased government revenue in the form of tax increases.

At first blush, Norquist's anti-tax zealotry looks like an extension of his professed philosophy of maximizing "freedom" by limiting the role of government--in this instance by advocating for the elimination of the funding it needs to function. We can have an honest debate about whether government programs increase or decrease individual freedom, but there is a much darker reality here. Norquist has spent his professional life using every means at his disposal to limit the democratic rights of his opponents (Norquist recently gloated that he "intend[s] to be part of the whole effort to crush the other team.").While our Founders promoted the concept of "one person, one vote" and believed in a republicanism that prioritized thepublicgood, Norquist's vision of America is one where the government coddles multi-billion dollar corporations but tells those citizens who are the most vulnerable to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Rather than listen uncritically to the "patriotic" platitudes offered by Norquist and other members of the Radical Right, I prefer to judge them by their actions. Norquist, in particular, has has no moral authority to lectureanybodyabout the proper role of democratic government--because he has no respect for the core principles that made this country great. Whether by physical force or political corruption, Norquist--who sits on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association (NRA)--has livedthe NRA's mantra: "The guys with the guns make the rules."

For starters, he has a sordid history of promoting a vile brand of "democracy" abroad. During the 1980s, he supported anti-Communist movements even when"Freedom Fighters"were perpetrating human rights abuses against the very countrymen they were "liberating." Two of the organizations Norquist backed wereUNITAandRENAMO. RENAMO has been accused ofkilling over one million civilians in Mozambique.UNITA employed child soldiers throughout the Angolan Civil War, including during the time that Norquist was a registered lobbyist for the organization. Norquist also lobbied for the interests of a number of African dictators in the United States, includingOmar Bongoof Gabon,Pascal Lissoubaof the Republic of Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko of (then) Zaire, andFrance-Albert Renéof Seychelles. Norquist's firm also representeda Hamas and Hezbollah supporternow serving a 23-year prison sentence for his role in a terrorist plot. Norquist was candid about the anti-democratic character of these tyrants, even describing René as "a guy who preferred not to have elections for a number of years."

His domestic political affairs are equally disturbing. Norquist has a long history with criminal GOP lobbyist JackAbramoff.Mark Salter, a top aide for Senator John McCain (R-AZ) aptly said, "By his own admission, Grover couldn't be any closer to Abramoff if they moved to Massachusetts and got married." When Abramoff was convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy in 2006, it was revealed that Norquist used his tax-exempt ATR organization to help Abramoff funnel moneyfrom his clients to conservative causes (ATR kept a small cut of the funds). The Senate Finance Committeereportedthat ATR "appear[ed] to have perpetrated a fraud on other taxpayers"by"profit-seeking and private benefit behavior inconsistent with their tax-exempt status. And by virtue of the tax benefits, other taxpayers implicitly subsidized this behavior." Additionally, clients of Abramoffwere directedto give Norquist's organization money. In an e-mail to colleagues, Abramoffwrote, "I spoke this evening with Grover. He said that, if [the Choctaw Indian tribe] want the taxpayer movement, including him, involved on this issue and anything else which will come up over the course of the year or so, they need to become a major player with ATR. He recommended that they make a $50,000 contribution to ATR." Between 1995 and 2002, the Mississippi Choctaw tribe donated $1.5 million to ATR.

Norquist has also worked assiduously to increase the influence wielded by corporate-backed lobbyists in Washington. In 1995, in the wake of the Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives,Norquist--along with then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (who has since been convicted of money laundering) and Jack Abramoff--founded The K Street Project. The goal of the project was to facilitate the hiring of Republicans at top lobbying firms, and then reward the firms by offering access to influential GOP officials. By 2003, Republican lobbyists held 33 of the 36 top-level lobbying positions in Washington. The explicit "pay-to-play" nature of the project was later made illegal, but the damage was done. So much for "one person, one vote"...

Norquist has also been active in suppressing the right of workers to organize. ATR has a number of "special projects," including the anti-labor Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) which seeks to "crush labor as a political entity." Teamster Magazine has described AWF as a corporation-backed "astroturf" group. Norquist has also backed anti-labor state ballot initiatives marketed as "paycheck protection."

It's easy to understand why Norquist finds himself at home on the National Rifle Association Board of Directors. The organization pays a lot of lip service to "freedom," even going so far as to call itself "the nation's oldest civil rights organization," but it's always willing to trample the freedom of others who get in its way. For example, the NRA had no problem pushing Congress to close the courts to lawsuits by victims of gun violence in order to protect its financiers in the gun industry. The NRA has also not hesitated to dismantle the presumption of innocence when it allows gun owners to shoot first and ask questions later.

From suppressing the democratic aspirations of millions of Africans to helping corporations fleece taxpayers to pushing worker/employer relations back to the Gilded Age, Norquist has proven by his actions that his brand of "freedom" is every bit as tainted as the NRA's. With the promise of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" now becoming an impossible dream for most Americans, we can see where their vision is leading us. No one should equate Norquist and the NRA with the realvalues that have made this country a glowing beacon of individual liberty for the last 235 years: political equality, commitment to the rule of law, and pluralism.

This is the fourth in a series of articles I have written profiling the rogues gallery that makes up the leadership of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Learn more atwww.MeetTheNRA.org.

nomad?

The name, Grover Norquist, is by now a familiar one to most Americans. He made a name for himself by crusading against taxes. Though he has never been elected to political office, his influence in the Republican party has made him a fixture in every election.

Yet, most people are unaware that the man has a long and colorful history in conservative circles. Most controversial is his support for Angolan leader Jonas Savimbi, rebel fighter who led child soldiers into war and who "killed, abducted, and terrorized civilians with impunity."

Michael Grunwald of Time’s Swampland once called Grover Norquist “an idealistic advocate of bad ideas." His ideals, however, haven't always been confined to thoughts alone. When they have led to action, the results, at least, for one African country death and misery of the innocent for the sake of his principle.

Most of us are familiar with his bad idea of “Taxpayer Protection Pledge" to oppose all tax increases and under all circumstances. We all know how he has bullied Republicans after they foolishly committed themselves to the poorly-conceived notion.

However there’s another less publicized bad idea hidden in Norquist’s background that has failed to get a lot of attention in the mainstream media. Actually that’s a shame because his famous war against tax cuts represents a small part of the colorful Norquist biography. In this post, we will take a closer look at his Angolan connections.

What sparked my interest was this remark. Norquist once told an interviewer:

"During the eighties, l was very active with the Afghan resistance, and in Mozambique and Angola.”

That intriguing remark, (confirmed by his own mother), is worth a closer look.

The statement most likely refers to his work as research director for a "grass-roots" conservative 501 (C) (3) and (4) non-profit organization called Citizens for America (CFA). To call it a grass roots organization is a big stretch unless the grass is on the White House lawn. Its own website states that the group was "founded in 1983 at a White House meeting between Lewis Lehrman and Jack Hume, [CEO of Basic American Foods], to promote the Reagan agenda."

Nowadays grassroots organizations are started by corporate heads and investment bankers. A good example is Lewis Lehrman, a former president of Rite Aiddrugstores, a board member of various right wing groups like Project for the New American Century, American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation. Later, in the late 1980s he would become the managing director of Morgan Stanley.

Lehrman also happened to be an unfortunate investor in George W. Bush’s first oil company, Arbusto).

To understand how Norquist could have found himself on a plane to war-torn Angola we have to take a brief side step.

Enemies of my Enemies

The Reagan Cold War policy was a simple one; Any rebel group fighting the Communist threat in the developing world- freedom fighters was the term the president liked to use- deserved American support. But it required a hard sell in Washington. Congress was understandably dubious about any direct support and repeatedly put roadblocks in the Neo-conservatives way.

Outside of the fact that many saw arming insurgents (as the Reagan administration did in Afghanistan) inside a sovereign nation was a breach in international law, this simplistic approach was both short-sighted and dangerous. For one thing, one problem was that the type of rebel leaders that drew support tended to be hardly any better than the communists they were replacing. In many cases they were worse. Whether you could call them terrorists or not, the only thing going for them was that they were our terrorists.

One confidential and distinctly unofficial event was held in 1985 in Jamba, Angola, which brought together an international collection of anti-communist rebel leaders. Nicaraguan, Laos, Afghanistan. The meeting, named Democracy International, was staged in the rebel headquarters of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)  and was hosted by the Angolan rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi. From the CFA side, Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff - later to be convicted in a lobbying scandal--helped Norquist organize the meeting. Lehrman was also in attendance. Exactly how many CIA operatives were already in Angola at the time is not known.

Paling Around with Norquist

Very early in his career Norquist made a lot of influential friends in the conservative movement. His positions give some us some idea about his reach:

Former executive director, College Republicans, 1981-83

Former executive director of National Taxpayers Union, 1981-83

Former economist and chief speechwriter, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1983-1984

Norquist preferred to work behind the scenes and instead of entering into politics with all of the scrutiny that that entails, Norquist became a powerful lobbyist. In addition to his domestic causes, he also found time to lobby for foreign entities as well.

The Nation magazine provides more information about Norquist’s activities during those days:

“During the second half of the 1980s, Norquist detoured from his tax work to engage in a series of safaris to far-off battlegrounds in support of anti-Soviet guerrilla armies, visiting war zones from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to southern Africa. Working alongside Col. Oliver North's freelance support network for the Nicaraguan contras and other Reagan Doctrine-allied insurgencies, Norquist promoted U.S. support for groups like Mozambique's RENAMO and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA in Angola, both of which were backed by South Africa's apartheid regime (Norquist represented UNITA as a registered lobbyist in the early 1990s).”

In fact, Norquist reportedly admitted to being the voice of Savimbi by ghost-writing some op-ed articles, promoting the freedom fighting benefits of UNITA. On one occasion, Norquist allegedly donned a UNITA uniform while on a visit to Angolan rebel-held zones.( He stripped down quickly when actual fighting broke out.)

So much for the patriot.

A year after the Democracy International meeting, in 1986, Savimbi was invited to the White House. The meeting was, as we have seen, superfluous since by that time, lobbyists like Norquist and right wing organizations, like The Heritage Foundation, had paved the way beforehand. After the one-on-one, Reagan spoke of UNITA in glowing terms, saying that the group was winning “ victory that electrifies the world."

Interestingly, despite the questions about Savimbi, Wikipedia has one positive quote- which appears in several wiki entries on Angola, Savimbi and CIA activities there. That enthusiastic quote comes from a missionary, Dr. Peter Hammond, who lived there at the time. And what a time it was. Angola had become another one of the many Cold War battlefields, with imported Cuban troops on one side (sent by Castro without Soviet permission) and Western-backed rebel insurgents on the other (with the full support of Washington.).

"There were over 50,000 Cuban troops in the country. The communists had attacked and destroyed many churches. MiG-23s and Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships were terrorising villagers in Angola. I documented numerous atrocities, including the strafing of villages, schools and churches. In 1986, I remember hearing Ronald Reagan's speech – carried on the BBC Africa service – by short wave radio: "We are going to send Stinger missiles to the UNITA Freedom Fighters in Angola!" ...Without any doubt, Ronald Reagan's policies saved many tens of thousands of lives in Angola."

A little further research reveals something more about this quote. Hammond’s credentials as a missionary have repeatedly been called into question since, according to some sources, he "was granted an honorary doctorate in missiology,” also known as “Mailorder Missionaries.”

As this link demonstrates, Dr. Hammond is certainly not the simple missionary that Wikipedia quote suggests. If his website is any indication, Hammond inhabits a world in which missionaries can become fighters.

Apologies, I digress.

Norquist, UNITA and Child Soldiers

Let’s turn back to back to Norquist and his relationship with UNITA. That Democracy International meeting was not the only jaunt Norquist made to Africa. In fact, Norquist made repeated trips to rebel controlled territory in Angola in the 1980s.

A little backtracking is necessary here.

UNITA and the USA had an on-off affair throughout the 1970s and 80s. In 1975, President Ford had warmed up to UNITA. Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State, supported the intervention into Angola by South African troops in support of UNITA.. President Carter on the other hand cut off ties with Savimbi and during that time, the US State Department considered UNITA a terrorist organization. As we have said, Reagan renewed the American relationship.

There was plenty of red flags about UNITA- all of which American conservatives ignored.. It was described by one human rights organization as:

“a rebel group led by Jonas Savimbi, [that] killed, abducted, and terrorized civilians with impunity.”

Another organization, the United States Institute for Peace, said of the former Marxist turned freedom fighter:

“Savimbi is indeed responsible for a litany of crimes against humanity.”

In his previous incarnation, the guerilla leader had been schooled in classic Maoist approaches to warfare before rejecting all things Communist. Human Rights campaigners charged that UNITA used child soldiers during the Angolan Civil War. This was the same time that Norquist was a registered lobbyist for the organization.

Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Josh Horwitz, writing for the Huffington Post describes Norquist’s early activities like this:

During the 1980s, he supported anti-Communist movements even when "Freedom Fighters" were perpetrating human rights abuses against the very countrymen they were "liberating." Two of the organizations Norquist backed were UNITA and RENAMO. RENAMO has been accused of killing over one million civilians in Mozambique. UNITA employed child soldiers throughout the Angolan Civil War, including during the time that Norquist was a registered lobbyist for the organization.

But Norquist didn’t limit his lobbying coverage just to Angola and Mozambique.

Norquist also lobbied for the interests of a number of African dictators in the United States, including Omar Bongo of Gabon, Pascal Lissouba of the Republic of Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko of (then) Zaire, and France-Albert René of Seychelles.

Norquist also worked with Hamas and Hezbollah. (Talk about paling around with terrorists)

Norquist's firm also represented a Hamas and Hezbollah supporter now serving a 23-year prison sentence for his role in a terrorist plot. Norquist was candid about the anti-democratic character of these tyrants, even describing René as "a guy who preferred not to have elections for a number of years."

Clearly Norquist doesn’t put a lot of faith in the beauty of democracy. After all, for a man who has never held any elected office, Norquist certainly wholeheartedly enjoys the trappings of power. The entire Republican party seems afraid to cross him.

The Reckoning of Norquist's Bad Ideas

The Reagan doctrine, which Norquist and the other Neo-conservatives so strongly supported, was a very mixed success-even in the short term. Despite all of Norquist’s lobbying and hands-on interference, Savimbi’s UNITA, like the Contras in Nicaragua, like the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, were all about manipulating the American foreign policy for the sake of power.

For some impartial outsiders, America's willingness to break the UN Charter, along with its extreme naivety when it came to insurgent leaders, brought it down to the same level as the Soviet Union.  In some ways, American prestige has never completely recovered.

According to his obituary in Los Angeles Times, Savimbi was quite willing to work with Angola’s former colonial masters, the Portuguese to eliminate any rival rebel movement.,

By 1977, the story of Savimbi's betrayal of the Angolan independence movement was public knowledge in Western Europe. In 1979, the mainstream Lisbon weekly Expresso concluded: "The fact that Savimbi collaborated with the Portuguese colonial authorities has been so amply proven that no one can question it in good faith."

Later the same held true when it came to utilizing the help of Pretoria. Then came Washington’s turn.

He was a warlord whose overriding principle was absolute power, and if this required an agreement with Portuguese colonial authorities first, and then a dalliance with apartheid, so be it.

Power, weapons and international recognition were the things which, through intense lobbying of Washington politicians, Grover Norquist supplied in full.

In the early 1990s, after the Cold War had ended, Savimbi lost his importance in conservative circles. The Angolan government held free elections and Savimbi lost. This demonstration of democracy in action didn’t discourage the rebel leader. He continued fighting up until his assassination by the Angolan military in 2002

We all know what the good book says about those that live by the sword, so his fate was no great surprise. However, the Bible says nothing about what happens to the people who furnish them the swords. Or in this case, the stingers missiles.

Following Savimbi’s assassination, editor Jeremy Harding in a piece written for the London Review of Books, back in 2002 wrote:

Jonas Savimbi stole just about everything and he should not be pitied. ... In the attempt, which lasted roughly thirty years, he robbed Angolan peasants of just about everything and several well-known politicians of their plausibility. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the Reagan Administration’s henchperson at the UN, described him as ‘one of the authentic heroes of our time’, and Reagan himself is reported to have likened him to Abraham Lincoln. Even as he ceased to serve the purposes of Washington and Pretoria at the end of the Cold War, he continued to persuade Western right-wing lobbyists and anti-Communist crusaders to part with their money: ‘hearts, minds and purses’ was the Savimbi strategy on this front and it paid off handsomely.

That reference to right-wing lobbyisst definitely included Norquist whose job it was to separate the politically-minded conservative fools from their money. another note: the fact that Reagan compared Savimbi to Lincoln- besides being a calumny to history- has CFA's Lehrman's fingerprints all over it. Lehrman has had a life-long passion for the 16th president and later would write and lecture about Abraham Lincoln's legacy in American history.

The Ironic Twist

Today, Jonas Savimbi, the guerrilla famous for his Angolan child army, is ironically a familiar face with American children who probably have have no idea who he might be.

Rendered as a grenade-launching comic book character, the warlord’s likeness appears in a popular computer game, Call of Duty-Black Ops II a first person shooter game. The plotline of the game is interesting to read; it uses a mash-up of a Neo-con false-narrative history as background material. Norquist could have written it himself.

The US army took a look at these types of simulation games and liked what they saw. With its high degree of realism, officials considered them to be wonderful training for soldiers in the battlefield.

On the other hand, the NRA has cited the marketing of these games- rather than guns- to be the true cause of these massacres. There’s some (but not much) support to that idea. Adam Lanza, the armed attacker of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, reportedly spent hours playing the game in his basement.

The irony doesn’t stop there. When the National Rifle Association (NRA) leader LaPierre suggested that the real problem with school attacks was there simply wasn’t enough armed protection at the facilities. Norquist’s response to the suggestion was:

“This is an idea that seems fairly reasonable.”

He also added:

“The gun-control advocates, for a long time, have jumped on every tragedy and tried to exploit it in unhelpful ways.,I think the NRA did well to hold off for awhile in responding. We ought to calm down and not take tragedies like this, crimes like this, and use them for political purposes.

As we have seen in his Angolan connections, Norquist is an authority on exploiting tragedies for political purposes.

Of course, his stand on the proposal shouldn’t surprise anybody. Grover Norquist, after all, sits upon the board of directors of the NRA.

So I suppose the question is whether to expect another of Grover Norquist's bad ideas. That is, whether he is actually finished arming child soldiers for an insurgent army yet.

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U.S. News & World Report-by Steven Nelson-Jul 17, 2014

Veteran conservative arm-twister Grover Norquist joined Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Michael Burgess, R-Texas, on Thursday to announce ...

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Washington Post (blog)-Jul 9, 2014

Norquist and Gleason are right that there will no doubt be political fallout from the sharing economy. I recently met a number of cab drivers in ...

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Explore in depth(3 more articles)

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http://www.:{nationaljournal.:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:com/politics/grover-norquist-explains-why-he-s-going-to-burning-man-20140729

July 29, 2014 Grover Norquist—the president of Americans for Tax Reform, which was founded in 1985 with a mission to fight income-tax increases—has wanted to go to Burning Man since 2012.

Burning Man is an annual festival of debauchery that takes place in the middle of the Nevada desert. Attendees, called "burners," often dress up in crazy costumes, waltz around naked, take copious amounts of illicit substances, and generally do whatever they want.

So, how did a conservative activist like Norquist get interested in Burning Man? He tells the story like this: A couple of years ago, Larry Harvey—the founder of Burning Man—was in Washington to negotiate with the National Park Service about land use for the festival, which takes place on federal land.Harvey later stopped by Americans for Tax Reform's weekly Wednesday meeting, and ending up going to dinner with Norquist and his wife, Samah Alrayyes Norquist. "You've got to come out!" Harvey told them.

Unfortunately, the stars did not align for Norquist that year—the Republican National Convention was scheduled for the same weekend as Burning Man. In July 2012, Norquisttweeted, "Which idiot put the GOP convention the same time as 'Burning Man' in Nevada? Is there time to change this?"...

Two years later, Norquist is finally crossing that item off his bucket list.

In a month, he and his wife will set out for Black Rock, Nev.—a barren, 300,000-acre desert that transforms into a hedonic metropolis for one week every August. (For more background, read Wells Tower's excellent story in GQ about his trip to Burning Man).

After Norquist announced Monday his plan to attend the festival, many reacted with disbelief, orsimply declared, "Burning Man is dead." But Norquist insists that the drug-filled utopia in the desert shares some common values with his own group, Americans for Tax Reform.

"Burning Man was founded in '86, the same year as the Pledge, and the first Burning Man had 20 people at it, and our first Center-Right Meeting—the Wednesday Meeting—also had 20 people. So I think there's a real kinship there," Norquist says. "These are very similar operations, except we tend to wear more clothes perhaps at the Wednesday Meetings."

Burning Man relies on a "giving economy" where attendees are encouraged to give goods and services free of charge—a system that Harveyhas called"old-fashioned capitalism." And this is hardly the first instance of capitalists like Norquist being drawn to Burning Man. In recent years,Silicon Valley's elite, including Google CEOEric Schmidt, have flocked to the event.

Norquist says the festival is a good example of the theory of spontaneous order. The theory, which was promoted by Austrian economists like Friedrich Hayek, holds that a natural structure will emerge out of a seemingly chaotic environment without need for outside intervention.

"There's no government that organizes this," Norquist said. "That's what happens when nobody tells you what to do. You just figure it out. So Burning Man is a refutation of the argument that the state has a place in nature."

[But corps crush communities]: guns, tobacco, booze, junk food: BM is bunch of rich whitle ppl who import massive resources for a week; no money