Weyrich

=7/18 belated primary, pol op, pioneer, founder of ALEC AND HERITAGE (cf english ctt founder fisher?)capt bak 619=<div style="font-size: small;">=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/noam-chomsky-republican-party/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/noam-chomsky-republican-party/</a>alexhThe United States has had 17 different presidents during Noam Chomsky's lifetime, from Calvin Coolidge to Joe Biden — and the left-wing author, now 92, has lived through major historical events including the Great Depression, Watergate, 9/11, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Chomsky discussed the challenges of the Biden era during a recent interview with author/journalist David Masciotra for the <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dismantle-all-of-this-stuff-a-conversation-with-noam-chomsky/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Los Angeles Review of Books</a>.Chomsky discussed his most recent book, "Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance," in the interview with Masciotra, warning that people who are hurting economically can be manipulated by far-right extremists. Chomsky has been a blistering critic of neoliberal economics, which he said continues to fail millions of people in the United States."I've seen it over and over," Chomsky told Masciotra. "During the Kennedy and Johnson years, the technocratic and meritocratic elite, my colleagues from Harvard and MIT, were flocking down to Washington to show how the world should be run. Well, in Vietnam, we saw what came of that. It was not unpredictable. Those of us in the streets were warning of it all along. Now, it is the same. Neoliberalism, whatever is in the minds of people who advocate for it — maybe they don't even think about it — is an explicit effort…. to hand power to private institutions, which are dedicated to self-enrichment."Neoliberalism, Chomsky added, only worsens the divide between the haves and the have-nots in the United States."The majority of the population gets by paycheck to paycheck," Chomsky told Masciotra. "Real wages have stagnated for 40 years. The gains of productivity growth concentrate in very few pockets. This leads to…. unfocused anger. Is it surprising? People aren't told what is really robbing them. Instead, they are told that it is immigrants, Blacks, some pedophiles from outer space, if you believe QAnon — anything but what is actually happening."When economic conditions are unfavorable to the working class, Chomsky noted, Republicans try to distract their voters with "cultural issues.""The Republicans, who are the party of the superrich, understood in the 1970s that you can't get votes by coming to people and saying, 'I want to rob you, and hand everything you have over to the rich and corporate sector,'" Chomsky explained. "Somehow, that doesn't work. You have to turn to what are called 'cultural issues,' meaning everything but what matters for your life. So, Paul Weyrich, one of the main Republican strategists, by the mid-1970s got a flash of insight and realized that if the Republicans pretend — stress 'pretend'— to be opposed to abortion, they'll pick up the evangelical vote and the northern Catholic vote."Noting that the Republican Party is becoming "increasingly dangerous and brazenly antidemocratic," Masciotra asked Chomsky to discuss the political climate of 2021. And Chomsky agreed with his description of the modern GOP.Chomsky said of the Republican Party, "They can mobilize the people they've turned into raging monsters, and get them to attack these communist rats who want the country flooded with rapists and murderers so that the White race suffers genocide. You know the whole story. That's the Republican Party. It's not a political party anymore. It's very dangerous."The 92-year-old author added that scapegoating is an effective tool of the far right in 2021 just as it was when he was a kid during the 1930s and Jews were targeted by Nazis. He explained:<blockquote style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px;">There are other parts of it that are just as dangerous. For example, just recently, Pew Research Center came out with one of its <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/14/as-the-u-s-copes-with-multiple-crises-partisans-disagree-sharply-on-severity-of-problems-facing-the-nation/ft_2020-07-14_nationalproblems_01/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">regular polls</a> on major issues facing the country. They had a choice of 15 major issues, and people were asked to rank them. It was divided between Republicans and Democrats. Take a look at Republicans. At the very bottom — 13 percent — the most important question that has ever arisen in human history: global warming. They don't call it that. They call it "climate change," which is more neutral. But only 13 percent think that is a major problem. It is only the most important problem that's ever arisen — the question of survival. Then you go to the problems they are most concerned about — illegal immigration, the deficit. This is the result of very effective propaganda. Imposing common sense, manufacturing consent, year after year — turning people into the kind of people that supported the Nazis. Going back to my childhood, I remember them right here in the United States. These were the people who wanted to get rid of the Jews, because "the Jews are destroying civilization."</blockquote>"If people are isolated, atomized, with no support groups, no involvement in constructive activities, they are prey to this attack on their moral and intellectual integrity," Chomsky continued. "Go back to what I said, the Republican leadership is overjoyed at the moves toward some humane behavior on the part of Democrats. They know, especially with (former President Donald) Trump — who is a genius at this —that they can organize and mobilize crazed groups who really believe they need their guns to save the White race from genocide. You can drive people to that."</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/how-the-war-against-voting-rights-became-a-pillar-of-the-conservative-agenda/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/how-the-war-against-voting-rights-became-a-pillar-of-the-conservative-agenda/</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>How the war against voting rights became a pillar of the conservative agenda</div><div>
</div><div>Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly April 1, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>Included in the stimulus bill put together by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats was a provision that established “a national requirement for both 15 days of early voting and no-excuse absentee vote-by-mail.” That one apparently got under Trump’s skin.</div><div>
</div><div>Trump openly admitting if we made voting easier in America, Republicans wouldn’t win elections</div><div>
</div><div>Trump: “The things they had in there were crazy. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”pic.twitter.com/x5HmX6uogo</div><div>
</div><div>— Lis Power (@LisPower1) March 30, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>Trump basically admitted that if more people voted, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” A lot of people assume that he said the quiet parts out loud when it comes to Republican efforts to suppress the vote. But just as Trump represents the culmination of many of the foundational principles on which the modern-day GOP was founded, the party has demonstrated over time that they aren’t particularly fond of democracy.</div><div>
</div><div>As Katherine Stewart documented in her book, The Power Worshippers, Paul Weyrich is often credited as the founder of the modern-day conservative movement. Even though he was not a particularly religious man, he developed a coalition between Goldwater Republicans and the religious right, which became the base that has elected every Republican president from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.</div><div>
</div><div>Here is something Weyrich said at a gathering of religious leaders back in 1980.</div><div>
</div><div>Weyrich clearly stated that he didn’t want everyone to vote. He went on to say that, for Republicans, “our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.” That was basically an admission that the majority of Americans don’t support Republican principles.</div><div>
</div><div>As far back as 1980, the whole idea of a so-called “moral majority” was a lie—and people like Weyrich knew it. Rather than attempt to reflect the will of voters, Republicans simply decided that, as Zachary Roth put it, “being outnumbered doesn’t have to mean losing.” Voter suppression was therefore embraced as a conservative principle.</div><div>
</div><div>More recently, Ari Berman documented the decades-long battle against the Voting Rights Act that was waged by our current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—John Roberts. The seeds of that battle were planted while Roberts served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, as well as his time in the Reagan Justice Department. It culminated in the Shelby vs Holder case when the Court overturned key elements of the Voting Rights Act, leading to a new wave of voter suppression efforts in the states.</div><div>
</div><div>Last year, when House Democrats passed a bill that included democratic reforms to campaign finance, ethics and voting rights, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the quiet parts out loud when he called them a “Democrat Politician Protection Act.” Once again, the inference is that, if more people vote, Democrats will be elected.</div><div>
</div><div>Those are just a few examples from the last forty years. But since our founding, rich white men have tried to limit the franchise to themselves. Here’s what Roth wrote about Alexander Hamilton’s only major speech at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.</div><div>
</div><div>Hamilton said the system should allow the “rich and the well born” to maintain their supremacy, since they would oppose radical change pushed by “the many.” The goal, he said, was to “check the imprudence of democracy.”</div><div>
</div><div>It is only through the blood, sweat, and tears of various movements that voting rights have been expanded in this country as a foundational principle of democracy. Obviously, that battle still rages on.</div></div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div>anti commie and semit together at last:</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/how-the-media-is-legitimizing-a-century-old-nazi-trope/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/how-the-media-is-legitimizing-a-century-old-nazi-trope/</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>How the media is legitimizing a century-old Nazi trope</div><div>
</div><div>written by Ari Paul / Truthdig June 7, 2019</div><div>1</div><div>Since the election of Donald Trump, Brexit and the rise and re-election of other far-right governments around the globe, “cultural Marxism” has become a well-known nationalist buzzword, alongside “globalism.”</div><div>
</div><div>When Norwegian right-winger Anders Breivik invoked “cultural Marxism” as the reason for his 77-person killing spree in 2011, many observers placed the notion in the same category as the killer—the fringe. But since the election of Donald Trump, Brexit and the rise and re-election of other far-right governments around the globe, “cultural Marxism” has become a well-known nationalist buzzword, alongside “globalism”: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro denounces it, and the media empire of former White House advisor Steve Bannon revolved around fighting it.</div><div>
</div><div>The phrase is seeping into mainstream media discourse, a far cry from its former days as an extremist catch phrase, and it’s creating a dangerous situation with an ominous historical context.</div><div>
</div><div>Doing his usual shtick of a more refined version of Abe Simpson, columnist David Brooks (New York Times, 11/26/19) lamented that today’s youths “tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy,” giving them a “clash of oppressed and oppressor groups” worldview. Also in the Times, contributor Molly Worthen (4/20/19) quoted the phrase “cultural Marxism”—not approvingly, but not explaining what it meant, either, just offering it as an example of what “conservatives” were complaining about. A Times story in 2017 (8/11/17) about a former White House aide reported that the aide believed “globalists” would “impose cultural Marxism in the United States”—again, without defining for the layperson what that might mean.</div><div>
</div><div>The Washington Post (like other newspapers) invoked the phrase in its reports on Bolsonaro’s rise to power last year, and even on the hipster styles of the new wave of American white nationalists: In November 2016, the Post (11/30/16) reported that the style of shaved sides with long hair combed back is “worn by men who feel their whiteness has been infringed upon by the ‘cultural Marxism’ of the Americas.” And opinion-haver Andrew Sullivan took to New York (2/9/18) to denounce “cultural Marxists” for inspiring social justice movements on campuses.</div><div>
</div><div>What does cultural Marxism mean for the far right? In the modern iteration, in spaces like Breitbart or Infowars, it is the belief that a failure by communists to topple capitalism through worker revolt has led to a “Plan B” to destroy Western society from the inside. By tearing down the gender binary, de-centering Christianity values, championing the weak over the privileged and creating a multicultural society, revolutionaries have unanchored traditional Western order. Everything from gay rights to Muslim immigration is, in the language of the far right, part of a plot to finish the job that radical worker organizing could not.</div><div>
</div><div>Suffice it to say, this is a most paranoid fantasy. Most Marxists don’t speak in these terms, and people who do advocate for immigration, multiculturalism or secularism do so out of a certain regard for human and civil rights. But the far right still obsesses that this is a historical cultural struggle.</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div>Like others on the right, the National Review (8/9/18) saw proof of the plot in the Frankfurt School, which</div><div>
</div><div>was born out of a psychological need to explain why communism had failed to take root, initially in Germany but more broadly in the West. The answer that Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and others settled on—after borrowing some ideas from Freud and Nietzsche—was that the structure of capitalist society (which they perversely and ludicrously equated with fascism) was even more totalitarian than they had realized. In other words, communism couldn’t take root because fascism already had.</div><div>
</div><div>It’s far from a cultural grappling with the Frankfurt School’s actual ideas, which live mostly in academia. As Spencer Sunshine, an associate fellow at Political Research Associates, points out, the focus on the Frankfurt School by the right serves to highlight its inherent Jewishness. “A piece stands in for the whole,” he said.</div><div>
</div><div>This isn’t one of those “yeah, it could be interpreted as antisemitic” things—it’s straight from Nazi ideology, with just enough cosmetic changes to make it acceptable for the modern right.  “Cultural Bolshevism” was the term used by Nazi critics of modernist art, which they believed to be rooted in Jewish decadence and thereby, according to Nazi logic, connected to the communist specter. As Dominic Green (Spectator USA, 3/28/19) wrote in a conservative critique of conservatives’ complaints about “cultural Marxism”: “For the Nazis, the Frankfurter School and its vaguely Jewish exponents fell under the rubric of Kulturbolshewismus, ‘Cultural Bolshevism.’”</div><div>
</div><div>It came into the American sector through paleoconservative writers William S. Lind and Paul Weyrich, who in a series of articles recraftedthe Nazi idea of “cultural Marxism” as a scare tactic for the American right. “These guys were all Jewish,” Lind told a Holocaust denial conference in 2002; Lind would be later be cited as a prominent influence on Trump’s nationalist agenda.</div><div>
</div><div>As Sunshine noted:</div><div>
</div><div>It is deeply disturbing that it is used by mainstream conservatives when it’s clearly antisemitic…. They attribute it to all these things, anything from Black Bloc to Hillary Clinton, any kind of social liberalism.</div><div>
</div><div>It’s not too surprising that the nationalistic right still clings onto such fascist anachronisms; it’s clearly helping them at the voting booth, from the United States to Europe to Brazil.  It’s an important mobilizing call for the far right, depicting things like immigration and secularism not simply as liberal values, but as far-left revolutionary tools.</div><div>
</div><div>What should be shocking is the cavalier way some traditional media, like the Times and the Post, are allowing it to live on their pages. Brooks rebrands cultural Marxism as mere political correctness, giving the Nazi-inspired phrase legitimacy for the American right. It is dropped in or quoted in other stories—some of them lighthearted, like the fashion cues of the alt-right—without describing how fringe this notion is. It’s akin to letting conspiracy theories about chem trails or vaccines get unearned space in mainstream press.</div><div>
</div><div>And it’s not as if the Times doesn’t know this. In 2018, Columbia University historian Samuel Moyn wrote in a Times blog post (11/13/18):</div><div>
</div><div>That “cultural Marxism” is a crude slander, referring to something that does not exist, unfortunately does not mean actual people are not being set up to pay the price, as scapegoats to appease a rising sense of anger and anxiety. And for that reason, “cultural Marxism” is not only a sad diversion from framing legitimate grievances, but also a dangerous lure in an increasingly unhinged moment.</div><div>
</div><div>Newspapers should be responsible with such phrases, and it’s easy to do that. It is common—and good practice—for mainstream journalists to avoid imprecise phrases like “pro-life,” and instead call the position “anti-abortion.” Reuters has tight rules for using the word “terrorist,” because the label is too often thrown around. For those with strong feelings about terrorism, it might have seemed insensitive, but for the sake of straight reporting, it was necessary. Brooks shouldn’t have used “cultural Marxism,” not because he should be censored, but because what he meant was “political correctness” and not (we hope) a century-old antisemitic trope.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>It would be sensible, when the term is invoked by far-right extremists, to provide readers with a definition of the phrase and its origin. And unless it is invoked in a quote, writers like Brooks should be encouraged not to use it all. “They should define it as an antisemitic conspiracy theory with no basis in fact,” Sunshine said of mainstream news editors.</div><div>
</div><div>Failure to do that, as places like the Times and Post are guilty of, has bitter consequences. “It is legitimizing the use of that framework, and therefore it’s coded antisemitism,” Sunshine said.</div></div><div></div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/us/politics/19weyrich.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/us/politics/19weyrich.html</a>no lnx
Paul M. Weyrich, the conservative thinker and strategist whose iron principles, articulate fervor and organization-building skills were instrumental in propelling the right wing of the Republican Party to power and prominence in the 1980s and ’90s, died Thursday. He was 66 and lived in Fairfax, Va.
Lee Edwards, a friend of Mr. Weyrich’s for four decades and a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative research group that Mr. Weyrich helped found, confirmed the death, at a hospital in Northern Virginia. The family did not release a cause, Mr. Edwards said, but Mr. Weyrich had many health problems, including diabetes. His legs were amputated at the knee in 2005, and he had broken his back in a fall some years earlier.
A writer, a lobbyist and an organizer on behalf of conservative causes and especially social conservatism, Mr. Weyrich (pronounced WY-rick) was one of the far right’s most unbending ideologues. He was widely credited with coining the phrase “moral majority” as a rallying label for social conservatives. It became the name of the religion-based political organization that was led by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
A deacon in the ultra-conservative Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Mr. Weyrich openly fused his faith and his politics.
“Defense is a moral issue,” he told The Washington Post in 1983, before the fall of the Soviet Union, adding that he considered the Communists to be godless oppressors. “There are some things worse than war. One is surrender — the moral consequences are such that the nation would be destroyed. Since I believe in eternal life, if it became necessary to sacrifice my life for my country or my beliefs, well, then I’m willing to do so. The people who have come up with the better-red-than-dead idea are not believers.”
For more than a quarter of a century, Mr. Weyrich was one of the Republican Party’s leading antagonists from the right. President Ronald Reagan, he said, had overemphasized economic issues and kept social issues “on the back burner,” as he wrote on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times in 1984.
In 1989, he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the first President Bush’s nominee for secretary of defense, John G. Tower, was unqualified for the post because he was a drinker and a womanizer, issues that eventually doomed the nomination. More recently, he accused the current President Bush of profligate domestic spending, and he was a critic of the Iraq war, asserting that a war conducted to spread democracy rather than to protect vital national interests deviated from conservative principles.
Perhaps more than anything, Mr. Weyrich was a nondeviator in his unswerving faith in small government, free-market economics, the right to life and the sanctity of the family. One possible exception: as a lifelong train enthusiast, he was an ardent advocate of government support for Amtrak.
Mr. Weyrich started the Heritage Foundation, a Washington research organization whose express aim is to influence Congress, in 1973 with Ed Feulner, helped by $250,000 from the Colorado beer magnate Joseph Coors. Both he and Mr. Feulner were Congressional aides at the time.
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Paul M. Weyrich was credited with coining “moral majority.” Credit Amy Toensing for The New York TimesMr. Weyrich also started the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, which raised money for conservative political candidates and focuses on vulnerable liberal incumbents; it later became the Free Congress Foundation, a separate group that specializes in cultural conservatism. Its statement of principles, issued in 1987 and written largely by Mr. Weyrich, defines “the belief that there is a necessary, unbreakable and causal relationship between traditional Western, Judeo-Christian values, definitions of right and wrong, ways of thinking and ways of living — the parameters of Western culture — and the secular success of Western societies.”
It was Mr. Weyrich’s conviction in making such sweeping statements — and the prickly, impatient, let’s-get-it-done manner with which he did business — that made him an architect of the conservative movement of the last part of the 20th century.
“Paul Weyrich fought tirelessly for three decades to protect the preborn, preserve traditional marriage and ensure that people of faith had a voice in shaping the public policy that affected their lives,” James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on Families, said in a statement on Thursday. “Had there been no Paul Weyrich, there would be no conservative movement as we know it.”
Richard A. Viguerie, the conservative direct-mail pioneer, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Weyrich was the least known of the four pillars of modern conservatism, the others being Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley Jr. and Ronald Reagan.
“It was a very, very brave soul who would get up and disagree after Paul had spoken,” Mr. Viguerie said. “He had great conviction, one face, public and private, and with his energy and drive, he just propelled us forward. He was fearless and tireless. We’d always be looking for someone to bell the cat, and Paul was always available to call this congressman, to call that senator and tell him, ‘You’re doing this wrong!’ or ‘You got to help us on this!’ ”
Paul Michael Weyrich was born in Racine, Wis., on Oct. 7, 1942. His father, Ignatius, was a German immigrant who worked for 50 years stoking the furnace in a Catholic hospital and who raised his son to treat religious and political matters alike with deep seriousness.
Mr. Weyrich attended the University of Wisconsin but did not graduate, supporting himself at first as a reporter for television and radio and at The Milwaukee Sentinel. He eventually became the news director for KQXI in Denver, and from there he went to Washington as an aide to Senator Gordon Allott, a conservative from Colorado.
A year or so later, Mr. Weyrich attended a meeting of aides to Congressional liberals that was also attended by lawyers, lobbyists and Brookings Institute fellows. What he witnessed was a revelation, he said. The subject of the meeting was President Richard M. Nixon’s failure to move forward on fair housing legislation.“All I did was sit there with my mouth open, watching the system being orchestrated,” he recalled years later in an interview with The Washington Post, “including getting outside demonstrators, when to get the op-ed piece in the newspaper so it would coincide with the demonstrations, when to have personal lobbying, who was going to speed up the timetable at Brookings to get their study out. It was magnificent. I said, ‘Thank you, Lord, I have needed this insight.’”
From that moment on, he said, he devoted himself to creating the same system for the right.
Mr. Weyrich’s survivors include his wife of 45 years, Joyce; two daughters, Dawn and Diana, and three sons, Peter, Stephen and Andrew.
“He was a throwback to an earlier age of people in politics, people who prized free-market economics, old-fashioned, traditional values,” Mr. Viguerie said. “The world has changed, but Paul didn’t change.”wiki Paul Michael Weyrich (October 7, 1942 – December 18, 2008)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a> was an American <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right" title="Christian right" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">religious</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States" title="Conservatism in the United States" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">conservative</a> political activist and commentator, most notable as a figurehead of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Right" title="" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">New Right</a>. He co-founded the conservative <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tanks" class="mw-redirect" title="Think tanks" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">think tanks</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation" title="The Heritage Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">The Heritage Foundation</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-murraybrown-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[5]</a> the Free Congress Foundation, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="American Legislative Exchange Council" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC). He coined the term "moral majority," the name of the political action group <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority" title="Moral Majority" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Moral Majority</a> that he co-founded in 1979 with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell" title="Jerry Falwell" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Jerry Falwell</a>. After <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council" title="Second Vatican Council" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Vatican II</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-wapo-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a> he switched from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Rite" title="Roman Rite" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Roman Rite</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church" class="mw-redirect" title="Roman Catholic Church" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Roman Catholic Church</a> to that of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melkite_Greek_Catholic_Church" title="Melkite Greek Catholic Church" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Melkite Greek Catholic Church</a> and was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordain" class="mw-redirect" title="Ordain" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">ordained</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protodeacon" title="Protodeacon" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">protodeacon</a>.
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</div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Early_life_and_conservative_activism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1Early life and conservative activism</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Political_activism(1973%E2%80%932008)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2Political activism (1973–2008)</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Rail_transit_activism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Rail transit activism</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Views" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4Views</a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Dominionism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.1Dominionism</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Criticism_of_conservatives_and_homosexuals" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.2Criticism of conservatives and homosexuals</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Culture_war_letter" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.3Culture war letter</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Spinal_injury,disability,and_death" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5Spinal injury, disability, and death</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#Quotes" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">6Quotes</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">7References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">8External links</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Early life and conservative activism[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Weyrich&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Early life and conservative activism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>Born in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racine,Wisconsin" title="Racine, Wisconsin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Racine</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin" title="Wisconsin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wisconsin</a>, to Virginia M. (née Wickstrom) and Ignatius A. Weyrich,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> Paul Weyrich became involved in politics while a student at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wisconsin%E2%80%93Parkside" title="University of Wisconsin–Parkside" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">University of Wisconsin–Parkside</a>. He was active in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racine_County,Wisconsin" title="Racine County, Wisconsin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Racine County</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Republicans" title="Young Republicans" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Young Republicans</a> from 1961 to 1963 and in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater" title="Barry Goldwater" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Barry Goldwater</a>'s 1964 presidential campaign. He spent his early career in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism" title="Journalism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">journalism</a> as a political reporter for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Journal-Sentinel" class="mw-redirect" title="Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Milwaukee Sentinel</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper" title="Newspaper" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">newspaper</a>, as political reporter and weekend anchor for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISN-TV" title="WISN-TV" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">WISN-TV</a> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee" title="Milwaukee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Milwaukee</a>),<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a> and in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio" title="Radio" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">radio</a> as a reporter for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWDV" title="WWDV" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">WAXO</a>-FM (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosha,Wisconsin" title="Kenosha, Wisconsin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Kenosha</a>), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLIP" title="WLIP" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">WLIP</a>-AM, and as news director of KQXI (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver" title="Denver" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Denver</a>).In 1966,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-murraybrown-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> he became <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_secretary" title="Press secretary" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">press secretary</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Republican_Party" class="mw-redirect" title="United States Republican Party" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Republican</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate" title="United States Senate" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">U.S. Senator</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_L.Allott" class="mw-redirect" title="Gordon L. Allott" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Gordon L. Allott</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado" title="Colorado" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Colorado</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-murraybrown-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> While serving in this capacity, he met Jack Wilson, an aide of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Coors" title="Joseph Coors" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Joseph Coors</a>, patriarch of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coors_Brewing_Company" title="Coors Brewing Company" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Coors</a> brewing family. Frustrated with the state of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_policy" title="Public policy" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">public policy</a> research, they founded Analysis and Research Inc. in 1971, but this organization failed to gain traction.<h2 style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Political activism (1973–2008)[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Weyrich&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Political activism (1973–2008)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">edit</a>]</h2><div class="thumb tright" style="clear: right; float: right; margin: 0.5em 0px 1.3em 1.4em; width: auto;"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); padding: 3px; text-align: center; overflow: hidden; width: 222px;">
<div class="thumbcaption" style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><div class="magnify" style="float: right; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weyrich-01.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" viewbox="%220" width="width" height="height" cg="Cg" id="%22smallbox%22" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%23000%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" d="%22M-1.499" h10.99v7.919h-10.99z="h10.99v7.919h-10.99z" e="E" h5.943v4.904h-5.943z="h5.943v4.904h-5.943z" c="C" g="g" background-position-x="background-position-x" initial="initial" background-position-y="background-position-y" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" user-select="user-select" none="none" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weyrich-01.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" viewbox="%220" width="width" height="height" cg="Cg" id="%22smallbox%22" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%23000%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" d="%22M-1.499" h10.99v7.919h-10.99z="h10.99v7.919h-10.99z" e="E" h5.943v4.904h-5.943z="h5.943v4.904h-5.943z" c="C" g="g" background-position-x="background-position-x" initial="initial" background-position-y="background-position-y" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" user-select="user-select" none="none" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Weyrich, 2007</a></div></div></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weyrich-01.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" viewbox="%220" width="width" height="height" cg="Cg" id="%22smallbox%22" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%23000%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" d="%22M-1.499" h10.99v7.919h-10.99z="h10.99v7.919h-10.99z" e="E" h5.943v4.904h-5.943z="h5.943v4.904h-5.943z" c="C" g="g" background-position-x="background-position-x" initial="initial" background-position-y="background-position-y" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" user-select="user-select" none="none" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">In 1973, persuading Joseph Coors to put the money in, Weyrich and </a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Feulner" title="Edwin Feulner" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Edwin Feulner</a> founded <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation" title="The Heritage Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">The Heritage Foundation</a> as a think tank<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-murraybrown-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> to counter liberal views on taxation and regulation, which they considered to be anti-business. While the organization was at first only minimally influential, it has grown into one of the world's largest public policy research institutes and has been hugely influential in advancing conservative policies. The following year, again with support from Coors, Weyrich founded the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (CSFC),<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-murraybrown-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> an organization that trained and mobilized conservative activists, recruited conservative candidates, and raised funds for conservative causes.The CSFC, founded by Weyrich, "became active in eastern European politics after the Cold War. Figuring prominently in this effort was Weyrich's right-hand man, Laszlo Pasztor, a former leader of the pro-Nazi <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Cross_Party" title="Arrow Cross Party" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Arrow Cross Party</a> in Hungary, which had collaborated with Hitler's Reich. After serving two years in prison for his Arrow Cross activities, Pasztor found his way to the United States, where he was instrumental in establishing the ethnic-outreach arm of the Republican national Committee."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a>Under Weyrich, the CSFC proved highly innovative. It was among the first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots" title="Grassroots" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">grassroots</a> organizations to raise funds extensively through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_mail" class="mw-redirect" title="Direct mail" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">direct mail</a> campaigns. It also was one of the first organizations to tap into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Christian" class="mw-redirect" title="Evangelical Christian" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">evangelical Christian</a> churches as places to recruit and cultivate activists and support for social conservative causes. In 1977, Weyrich co-founded <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Voice(USA)" class="mw-redirect" title="Christian Voice (USA)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Christian Voice</a> with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Grant(Christian_leader)" title="Robert Grant (Christian leader)" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Robert Grant</a>. Two years later, with Jerry Falwell, he founded the Moral Majority (1979–1989).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a>Over the next two decades, Weyrich founded, co-founded, or held prominent roles in a number of other notable conservative organizations. Among them, he was founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of state legislators; a co-founder of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_National_Policy" title="Council for National Policy" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Council for National Policy</a>, a strategy-formulating organization for social conservatives; co-publisher of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine" title="Magazine" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">magazine</a> Conservative Digest; and national chairman of Coalitions for America, an association of conservative activist organizations. The CSFC, reorganized into the Free Congress Foundation, also remained active.Under the auspices of the FCF, he founded the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,D.C." title="Washington, D.C." style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Washington, D.C.</a>–based <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite" title="Satellite" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">satellite</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_station" title="Television station" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">television station</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Empowerment_Television" title="National Empowerment Television" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Empowerment Television</a> (NET), later relaunched as the for-profit channel "America's Voice" in 1997. That same year, Weyrich was forced out of the network he had founded when the network's head persuaded its board to force out Weyrich in a hostile takeover. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_Berlet" title="Chip Berlet" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Chip Berlet</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Research_Associates" title="Political Research Associates" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Political Research Associates</a> says this was "apparently for his divisive behavior in attacking GOP pragmatists".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-autogenerated1-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a> From 1989 to 1996, he was also president of the Krieble Institute, a unit of the FCF that trained activists to support democracy movements and establish small businesses in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe" title="Eastern Europe" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Eastern Europe</a> and the former <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union" title="Soviet Union" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Soviet Union</a>.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">citation needed</a>]By 1997, the Heritage Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation were two of the top five biggest and best funded conservative think tanks.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-murraybrown-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Rail transit activism</h2>In contrast with many conservatives, Weyrich had a long history of ardent support for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport" title="Rail transport" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">rail</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport" title="Public transport" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">mass transit</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-usa_today_obit-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-righting-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a> He opposed "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit" title="Bus rapid transit" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Bus rapid transit</a>"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a> (a particular type of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport_bus_service" title="Public transport bus service" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">bus transit</a> with higher capacity but also higher costs than ordinary bus transit), and instead supported rail transit as a more effective alternative. In 1988 he co-founded a quarterly magazine on the subject of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_rail_transit" title="Urban rail transit" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">urban rail transit</a>, called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Electric_Railway_Journal" title="The New Electric Railway Journal" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The New Electric Railway Journal</a>, which until 1996 was published by FCF, and he was its Publisher.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-cutting_cord-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a> He wrote an opinion column for most issues and contributed a few feature articles. FCF discontinued its affiliation with TNERJ in 1996, but the magazine continued being produced, under a different publishing company,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-cutting_cord-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a> until the end of 1998, with Weyrich listed as "Publisher Emeritus". In early 2000,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-nnerj_website_2000-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a> about a year after the last <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Electric_Railway_Journal" title="The New Electric Railway Journal" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">magazine</a> was published, Weyrich and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S.Lind" title="William S. Lind" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">William S. Lind</a> (who had been the magazine's Associate Publisher until 1996) launched a website where they could continue to post their views and news about rail transit. They called the webpage "The New New Electric Railway Journal",<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-nnerj_website_2000-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a> and Weyrich wrote numerous op-ed columns in favor of proposed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail" title="Light rail" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">light rail</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_transit" title="Rapid transit" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">metro</a> systems. He also supported bringing back <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram" title="Tram" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">streetcars</a> to U.S. cities.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-streetcar_report-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a>Weyrich also served on the national board of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak" title="Amtrak" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Amtrak</a> (1987–1993)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-wyoming-weyrich_papers-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a> and the Amtrak Reform Council, as well as on local and regional rail transit advocacy organizations.<h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Views</h2>As one of the key figures of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Right#United_States" title="New Right" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">New Right</a>—<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper%27s_Magazine" title="Harper's Magazine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Harper's Magazine</a> wrote that he was "often described by his admirers as 'the Lenin of social conservatism'"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a>—Weyrich positioned himself as a defender of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_conservatism" title="Traditionalist conservatism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">traditionalist</a> sociopolitical values of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights" title="States' rights" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">states' rights</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism" class="mw-redirect" title="Dominionism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">dominionism</a>, marriage, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism" title="Anti-communism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">anti-communism</a>, and a staunch opponent of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left" title="New Left" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">New Left</a>. Consequently, many of his views were controversial.In Thy Kingdom Come, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Balmer" title="Randall Balmer" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Randall Balmer</a> recounts comments that Weyrich, whom he describes as "one of the architects of the Religious Right in the late 1970s", made at a conference sponsored by a Religious Right organization, that they both attended in Washington in 1990:<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a><blockquote class="templatequote" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px;">In the course of one of the sessions, Weyrich tried to make a point to his Religious Right brethren (no women attended the conference, as I recall). Let's remember, he said animatedly, that the Religious Right did not come together in response to the Roe decision. No, Weyrich insisted, what got us going as a political movement was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially discriminatory policies.</blockquote><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University" title="Bob Jones University" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Bob Jones University</a> had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University#Racial" title="Bob Jones University" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">policies</a> that refused black students enrollment until 1971, admitted only married blacks from 1971 to 1975, and prohibited interracial dating and marriage between 1975 and 2000.In its October 27, 1997 issue, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Republic" title="The New Republic" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The New Republic</a> published an article "Robespierre of the Right—What I Ate at the Revolution" by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Grann" title="David Grann" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">David Grann</a>, which portrayed Weyrich as highly effective at creating a conservative establishment but also a volatile and tempestuous figure.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[22]</a> Weyrich, supported by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Klayman" title="Larry Klayman" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Larry Klayman</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch" title="Judicial Watch" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Judicial Watch</a>, sued the magazine and others for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel" class="mw-redirect" title="Libel" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">libel</a>; the case was dismissed, then <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remanded" class="mw-redirect" title="Remanded" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">remanded</a> in January 2001, then dropped by Weyrich.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[23]</a>Weyrich abhorred "Political Correctness, which we more accurately call '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism" class="mw-redirect" title="Cultural Marxism" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Cultural Marxism</a>,'" seeing it as a deliberate effort to undermine "our traditional, Western, Judeo-Christian culture" and the conservative agenda in American society. In 1999, writing that he believed "we have lost the culture war", he suggested "a legitimate strategy for us to follow is to look at ways to separate ourselves from the institutions that have been captured by the ideology of Political Correctness, or by other enemies of our traditional culture.... we need to drop out of this [alien and hostile] culture, and find places, even if it is where we physically are right now, where we can live godly, righteous and sober lives."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-FreeCongress-24" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[24]</a>In response to a 1999 controversy covered by the press concerning a group of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca" title="Wicca" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Wiccans</a> in the United States military who were holding religious rituals and services on the grounds of the bases they were assigned to, Weyrich sought to exempt Wiccans from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Exercise_Clause_of_the_First_Amendment" class="mw-redirect" title="Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-wiccans-25" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[25]</a> and bar them from serving the military altogether. Weyrich, as president of the Free Congress Foundation, led a coalition of ten religious right organizations that attempted a Christian boycott on joining the military until all Wiccans were removed from the services, saying:<blockquote class="templatequote" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Until the Army withdraws all official support and approval from witchcraft, no Christian should enlist or re-enlist in the Army, and Christian parents should not allow their children to join the Army. ...An Army that sponsors satanic rituals is unworthy of representing the United States of America. ...The official approval of satanism and witchcraft by the Army is a direct assault on the Christian faith that generations of American soldiers have fought and died for. ...If the Army wants witches and satanists in its ranks, then it can do it without Christians in those ranks. It's time for the Christians in this country to put a stop to this kind of nonsense. A Christian recruiting strike will compel the Army to think seriously about what it is doing.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-wiccans-25" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[25]</a></blockquote><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;">Dominionism</h3>According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheocracyWatch" title="TheocracyWatch" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">TheocracyWatch</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League" title="Anti-Defamation League" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Anti-Defamation League</a>, both Weyrich and his Free Congress Foundation were closely associated with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism" class="mw-redirect" title="Dominionism" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">dominionism</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-TheocracyWatch-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[26]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-adl-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[27]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheocracyWatch" title="TheocracyWatch" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">TheocracyWatch</a> listed both as leading examples of "dominionism in action," citing "a manifesto from Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation," <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Integration_of_Theory_and_Practice&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="The Integration of Theory and Practice (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-28" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[28]</a> which "illuminates the tactics of the dominionist movement".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-TheocracyWatch-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[26]</a> TheocracyWatch which calls it "Paul Weyrich's Training Manual", and others, consider this manifesto a virtual playbook for how the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy" title="Theocracy" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">theocratic</a> right" in American politics can get and keep power.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-29" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">[</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-29" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">29]</a> The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League" title="Anti-Defamation League" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Anti-Defamation League</a> identified Weyrich and the Free Congress Foundation as part of an alliance of more than 50 of the most prominent conservative Christian leaders and organizations that threaten the separation of church and state.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-adl-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[27]</a> Weyrich continued to reject allegations that he advocated theocracy, saying, "[T]his statement is breathtaking in its bigotry",<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-30" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[30]</a> and dismissed the claim that the Christian right wished to transform America into a theocracy.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-autogenerated3-31" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[31]</a> Katherine Yurica wrote that Weyrich guided Eric Heubeck in writing The Integration of Theory and Practice, the Free Congress Foundation's strategic plan published in 2001 by the FCF,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-32" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[32]</a> which she says calls for the use of deception, misinformation, and divisiveness to allow <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States" title="Conservatism in the United States" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">conservative</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism" title="Evangelicalism" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">evangelical Christian</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party(United_States)" title="Republican Party (United States)" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Republicans</a> to gain and keep control of seats of power in the government of the United States.Weyrich publicly rejected accusations that he wanted America to become a theocracy:<blockquote class="templatequote" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some political observers may see the presence of religious conservatives in the Republican Party as a threat. My former friend Kevin Phillips [author of American Theocracy], who in the early days of the New Right was so helpful, now acts as if a theocracy governs the nation. Phillips was the architect of President Richard M. Nixon's Southern strategy, which worked brilliantly until Nixon did himself in. Now that the South does have the upper hand in the Republican Party Phillips is bitter about it. I see no theocracy here. As someone who has helped the religious right transition to the political process, I would have nothing to do with something akin to Iran translated into Americanize.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-autogenerated3-31" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[31]</a></blockquote><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;">Criticism of conservatives and homosexuals[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Weyrich&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: Criticism of conservatives and homosexuals" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h3>Weyrich also often made an issue out of what he claimed were his fellow conservatives' behavior and abuse of power, and he encouraged a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots" title="Grassroots" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">grassroots</a> movement in conservatism he called "the next conservatism", which he said should work to "restore America" from the bottom up. Illustrating his point, Weyrich drew a comparison between "how the Christian church grew amidst a decaying Roman Empire" and "how the next conservatism can restore an American republic as a falling America Empire collapses around us."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-33" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[33]</a>He advocated a revival of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee" title="House Un-American Activities Committee" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">House Un-American Activities Committee</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Internal_Security_Subcommittee" class="mw-redirect" title="Senate Internal Security Subcommittee" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Senate Internal Security Subcommittee</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.Senate_Committee_on_the_Judiciary" class="mw-redirect" title="U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary</a>, with the aim of identifying and removing communists from the media, which he contended still harbors infiltrators from the former Soviet Union:<blockquote class="templatequote" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">From what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Gaidar" class="mw-redirect" title="Igor Gaidar" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Igor Gaidar</a> told me, we needed to have revived these committees with a focus not so much on Hollywood but on the media itself. We know that one New York Times reporter, who always portrayed Stalin as Good Old Uncle Joe, was in fact a Communist and operated for decades on the Times staff. Were there any more? How about the Washington Post? ... Why not reconstitute these two committees and let them work hand in glove with the FBI. That is what happened before 1965. J. Edgar Hoover would often suggest good targets to be investigated.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-autogenerated2-34" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[34]</a></blockquote>In a 2006 interview<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-35" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[35]</a> with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Norris" title="Michele Norris" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Michele Norris</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Radio" class="mw-redirect" title="National Public Radio" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Public Radio</a> about the 2006 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foley_scandal" title="Mark Foley scandal" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Mark Foley scandal</a>, Weyrich expressed his views regarding <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality" title="Homosexuality" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">homosexuality</a>:<blockquote class="templatequote" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Weyrich: It has been known for many years that Congressman Foley was a homosexual. Homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex—the idea that he should be continued, or should have been continued as chairman on the Committee for Missing and Exploited Children, given their knowledge of that is just outrageous (Interview at 1:08).
Norris: Now, before we go on, I think I can say, Mr. Weyrich, that there're quite a few people who would take exception to the statement that homosexuals are preoccupied with sex.
Weyrich: Well, I don't care whether they take exception to it—it happens to be true.
Norris: That is your opinion.
Weyrich: Well, it's not my opinion, it's the opinion of many psychologists and psychiatrists who have to deal with them. (Interview at 1:40)</blockquote><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;">Culture war letter</h3>Frustrated with public indifference to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewinsky_scandal" class="mw-redirect" title="Lewinsky scandal" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Lewinsky scandal</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-Fuku_1999-36" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[36]</a> Weyrich wrote a letter in February 1999 stating that he believed conservatives had lost the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war" title="Culture war" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">culture war</a>, urging a separatist strategy where conservatives ought to live apart from corrupted mainstream society and form their own parallel institutions:<blockquote class="templatequote" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I believe that we probably have lost the culture war. That doesn't mean the war is not going to continue, and that it isn't going to be fought on other fronts. But in terms of society in general, we have lost. This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories fail to translate into the kind of policies we believe are important.Therefore, what seems to me a legitimate strategy for us to follow is to look at ways to separate ourselves from the institutions that have been captured by the ideology of Political Correctness, or by other enemies of our traditional culture.What I mean by separation is, for example, what the homeschoolers have done. Faced with public school systems that no longer educate but instead 'condition' students with the attitudes demanded by Political Correctness, they have seceded. They have separated themselves from public schools and have created new institutions, new schools, in their homes. I think that we have to look at a whole series of possibilities for bypassing the institutions that are controlled by the enemy. If we expend our energies on fighting on the "turf" they already control, we will probably not accomplish what we hope, and we may spend ourselves to the point of exhaustion.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-37" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[37]</a></blockquote>This was widely interpreted as Weyrich calling for a retreat from politics, but he almost immediately issued a clarification stating this was not his intent. In the evangelical magazine World he wrote:<blockquote class="templatequote" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">... [W]hen critics say in supposed response to me that 'before striking our colors in the culture wars, Christians should at least put up a fight,' I am puzzled. Of course they should. That is exactly what I am urging them to do. The question is not whether we should fight, but how. ...In essence, I said that we need to change our strategy. Instead of relying on politics to retake the culturally and morally decadent institutions of contemporary America, I said that we should separate from those institutions and build our own.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-autogenerated1-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a></blockquote>By 2004, Weyrich was reportedly more hopeful, given trends in public opinion and the reelection of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States" title="President of the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">President</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">George W. Bush</a>. In spite of his initial support for Bush, he often disagreed with Bush administration policies. Examples of their disagreement included the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War" title="Iraq War" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Iraq War</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration" title="Immigration" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">immigration</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Miers" title="Harriet Miers" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Harriet Miers</a>, and fiscal policy.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-38" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[38]</a>After the fall of the Soviet Union, Weyrich made many trip to Russia and was a supporter of a close Russia-United States relationship.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-39" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[39]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Spinal injury, disability, and death</h2>In 1996, Weyrich was diagnosed with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_injury" class="mw-redirect" title="Spinal injury" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">spinal injury</a> known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnoiditis" title="Arachnoiditis" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">arachnoiditis</a>, resulting from a 1996 fall on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_ice" title="Black ice" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">black ice</a>. From 2001 until his death in 2008, his injury left him in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelchair" title="Wheelchair" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">wheelchair</a> and in chronic pain. Complications from that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling(accident)" title="Falling (accident)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">fall</a> required a bilateral, below the knee <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amputation" title="Amputation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">amputation</a> of his legs in July 2005.Weyrich died on December 18, 2008, aged 66, at Inova Fair Oaks Hospital in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax,Virginia" title="Fairfax, Virginia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Fairfax</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia(U.S.state)" class="mw-redirect" title="Virginia (U.S. state)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Virginia</a>. He was at the hospital for routine tests, and the cause of death was not released. In addition to his spinal injury and amputations, Weyrich also suffered from type 2 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus" title="Diabetes mellitus" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">diabetes</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-wapo-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a> He was interred in Fairfax Memorial Park in Fairfax, Virginia, on December 22, 2008.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-40" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[40]</a>Weyrich and his wife, the former Joyce Smigun, who resided with him in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annandale,Virginia" title="Annandale, Virginia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Annandale</a>, Virginia, had five children: Dawn Ceol of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket,Virginia" title="Haymarket, Virginia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Haymarket</a>, Virginia, Peter Weyrich of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria,Virginia" title="Alexandria, Virginia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Alexandria</a>, Virginia, Diana Pascoe of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu,Hawaii" class="mw-redirect" title="Honolulu, Hawaii" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Honolulu</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii" title="Hawaii" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hawaii</a>, Stephen Weyrich of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_Station,_Virginia" title="Fairfax Station, Virginia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Fairfax Station</a>, Virginia, and Andrew Weyrich of Fairfax County; and thirteen grandchildren.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-wapo-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Quotes</h2><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">
</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">
</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-41" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[41]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-42" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[42]</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"We are different from previous generations of conservatives... We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country." – Soloma, John. Ominous Politics: The New Conservative Labyrinth (1984), Hill and Wang Publ., New York</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"The real enemy is the secular humanist mindset which seeks to destroy everything that is good in this society." – "The Rights and Wrongs of the Religious Right", Freedom Writer, Institute for First Amendment Studies, October 1995.</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"Christ was crucified by the Jews... He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered Him a threat. Thus He was put to death." – Indeed, He is Risen!, April 13, 2001<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-43" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[43]</a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"We have to stop the movement of all our manufacturing to China and other foreign countries. If that requires tariffs, starting with tariffs to protect industries of strategic importance, so be it."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-44" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[44]</a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"If we want to stop or at least reduce outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries, we should tax outsourcing. In my view, that would be a good new tax."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-45" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[45]</a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"I asked <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Gaidar" title="Yegor Gaidar" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[Yegor] Gaidar</a> why it was that he thought free-market efforts in the Soviet Union were being trashed by American media when the reality was far different from what I was seeing. He replied with a stinging answer, one I never will forget. He said, 'Well, the Soviets spent millions of dollars infiltrating your media. Just because the Soviet Union went away doesn't mean these people have gone away. They are still there.' Of course, I knew this."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich#cite_note-autogenerated2-34" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[34]</a></li></ul>WT BS obit<a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/18/paul-m-weyrich-dead-age-66/">https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/18/paul-m-weyrich-dead-age-66/</a>no lnxPaul M. Weyrich, one of the early founders of the Heritage Foundation and a leading force in the conservative movement, died Thursday morning at age 66, the foundation reported.
He was chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
Mr. Weyrich had been ill for several years, eventually having to have both legs amputated, yet he managed to remain active to the end, organizing summit meetings on the future of conservatism as well as writing opinion pieces for his own foundation and for news organizations.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said of Mr. Weyrich: “Ideas alone do not have consequences. Ideas, even — or especially — powerful ideas are like seeds. If they land in fertile soil and are cultivated, they can grow. On rock or sand or ignored or tended by incompetents, they die. The idea of individual liberty and a limited constitutional government has been around a long time. Liberty doesn’t need new ideas to advance, but institutions to give muscle and skeletal structure to a political movement for liberty. That is how Paul Weyrich changed the world for the better.”
Mr. Norquist said Mr. Weyrich understood that only freedom could successfully promote traditional values. “He brought leaders of various freedom impulses together. Most of the successes of the conservative movement since the 1970s flowed from structures, organizations, and coalitions he started, created or nurtured.”
The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition said of his friend: “Paul Weyrich was a pioneer of the conservative movement and a staunch defender of traditional values. He was a brilliant strategist, an aggressive defender of the faith, and a determined foe against the failed philosophy of liberalism. Most of all, he was a good friend, confidant and someone who could be relied upon to do the right thing for our nation and for the Christian faith, which he embraced. We will miss him — and the conservative movement has lost a giant whose influence will be felt for years to come.”
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, echoed those sentiments Thursday.
“During the last 40 years, Paul Weyrich helped create ‘cultural conservatism’ and infuse creative thinking into the conservative movement. He was a good friend, and I will miss him greatly.”
Rep. Tom Price, incoming chair of the Republican Study Committee, described the legacy of Mr. Weyrich’s work.
“America and conservatives lost a giant today,” Mr. Price said. “Like all who admired him, I am deeply saddened to learn of Paul Weyrich’s passing. Paul was a man of great passion who made our nation better by fighting for that in which he truly believed. His legacy will be one of enthusiasm, ingenuity, and unyielding principle. Only because of the hard work of Paul Weyrich do conservatives have the voice we enjoy today. Though Paul is in a better place today, we will honor his life by continuing to positively and actively defend the ideals for which he lived.”
Mr. Weyrich often made his views known in columns in The Washington Times.
In his Dec. 11 column in The Times, Mr. Weyrich wrote: “When pundits are asked to name the best presidents of the 20th century, Harry S. Truman’s name always comes up. That is interesting because when he left office in 1953 he had even lower approval ratings than President Bush now has. … How will history judge Mr. Bush? Many of us won’t be alive when the first verdict is in.”
His last open column, dated Thursday at the Free Congress Foundation, was titled: “The Next Conservatism, A Serious Agenda for the Future.”
In that column, he wrote: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It is the worst of times because millions of Americans are unemployed this Christmas. It is the worst of years because we have mortgaged the future of our children and grandchildren for decades to come. It is the worst of years because many good friends have left us. It is the best of times because we still live in the greatest nation on earth. It is the best of years because we have the freedom to speak our minds. It is the best of years because we can organize as we see fit to support the political candidates of our choice.”
The Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. Mike Duncan said, “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Paul Weyrich, whose life work was instrumental in the development of conservative thought. As the first president of the Heritage Foundation and respected leader of other conservative organizations and coalitions, Paul’s service to America has embodied and further advanced the Republican Party’s core values of limited government, lower taxes, and individual responsibility. We are saddened by the passing of Paul Weyrich, but we know that his contributions will continue to resonate for generations.”
The Heritage Foundation’s blog Thursday stated: “Weyrich was a good friend to many of us at Heritage, a true leader and a man of unbending principle. He won Heritage’s prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Award in 2005.
“Weyrich will be deeply missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, including son Steve, who currently works at Heritage.”

Paul M. Weyrich <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.freecongress.org/about/pweyrich.asp" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">[2]</a> was an early founder of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Heritage_Foundation" title="Heritage Foundation" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Heritage Foundation</a> and "Chairman and CEO of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Free_Congress_Research_and_Education_Foundation" title="Free Congress Research and Education Foundation" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Free Congress Research and Education Foundation</a>. He served as President of the Free Congress foundation from 1977 to 2002. From 1989 to 1996, Mr. Weyrich served as President of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kreible_Institute&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Kreible Institute (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Kreible Institute</a> of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Free_Congress_Foundation" title="Free Congress Foundation" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Free Congress Foundation</a>, responsible for training democracy movements in the states comprising the Former Soviet Empire.

"He is a founder and past director of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="American Legislative Exchange Council" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>, and was a National Chairman of<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coalitions_for_America&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Coalitions for America (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Coalitions for America</a>.

<h2 style="background-image: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto;">Early ALEC Supporter</h2>

One of ALEC’s founders was right- wing political apparatchik Paul Weyrich, a Racine native who famously said: “I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people – they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” This spirit is reflected in ALEC’s push for “voter ID,” which purports to address the statistically non-existent (but greatly hyped) issue of voter fraud and which has the very real effect of making it harder for students, people of color, and the elderly to cast ballots. University of Wisconsin professor Kenneth Mayer recently testified that over 220,000 people in Wisconsin lack the specific kinds of identification now required to vote under the new Wisconsin law. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paul_M._Weyrich#cite_note-0" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[1]</a>

<table style="vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(201, 215, 240);"><tbody><tr><th style="background-color: rgb(41, 102, 184); font-weight: bold; border: 1px solid rgb(64, 127, 212); text-align: left; padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">About ALEC</th></tr><tr><td style="">

<div style="padding: 2px 5px;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC" title="ALEC" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">ALEC</a> is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">ALECexposed.org</a>, and check out breaking news on our <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.prwatch.org/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">PRWatch.org site</a>.</div>

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<h2 style="background-image: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto;">Background</h2>

"A former reporter and radio news director, Mr. Weyrich is a regular guest on daily radio and television talk shows. A sought-after writer, Mr. Weyrich has published policy reports and journals on a variety of conservative issues and has contributed editorials to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He has been described by The Economist as 'one of the conservative movement's more vigorous thinkers.' Voted three years in a row from 1981 - 1983 by readers of Conservative Digest as one of the top three 'most popular conservatives in America not in Congress,' Mr. Weyrich has been named byRegardie's Magazine as 'one of the 100 most powerful Washingtonians.'

"He has been married since 1963 to the former Joyce Smigun, is the father of five children, and serves as a deacon in his church. Age: 57. Born in Racine, Wisconsin, married to Joyce Smigun Weyrich, July 6, 1963."

In an interview with The Hill, Weyrich noted that the rise of conservatives within Congress had led to groups such as his having greater influence through groups such as the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Conservative_Working_Group" title="Conservative Working Group" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Conservative Working Group</a> (CWG) and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Senate_Republican_Steering_Committee" title="Senate Republican Steering Committee" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Senate Republican Steering Committee</a>.

Weyrich headed the CWG when it was first established in 1974. "When we first started [in 1974], we didn't really have anyone in leadership favorable to our point of view," he said. <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://thehill.com/news/10052004/agenda.aspx" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">[3]</a>

"We had to figure out ways to get around them. â?¦ Today, it's entirely different. Today, we have the most conservative leadership group in the modern history of Senate. â?¦ The Steering Committee under these circumstances is taken very seriously," he told The Hill. <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://thehill.com/news/10052004/agenda.aspx" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">[4]</a>

Mr. Weyrich died December 18, 2008 at age 66.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paul_M._Weyrich#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a>

<h2 style="background-image: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto;">Quotes</h2>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"We are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country." (<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Soloma&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="John Soloma (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">John Soloma</a>'s 1984 book, Ominous Politics: the new conservative labyrinth, Hill and Wang, New York ISBN: 0809072955 0809001594).</li>

</ul>

<h2 style="background-image: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto;">Background and positions</h2>

(<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.freecongress.org/about/pweyrich.asp" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">source</a>)

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">President, Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, 1977 - present.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">President, The Krieble Institute of Free Congress Foundation (responsible for training democracy movements in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Empire) 1989 - 1996.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Member, Board of Directors, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Open_Debates" title="Open Debates" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Open Debates</a>.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Member, Board of Directors, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Freedom_and_Democracy_Institute_of_Russia&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="The Freedom and Democracy Institute of Russia (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">The Freedom and Democracy Institute of Russia</a>, 1997 - present.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Treasurer, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Council_for_National_Policy" title="Council for National Policy" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Council for National Policy</a>, 1981 - 1992 (currently on the Executive Committee of the CNP).</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">National Chairman, Coalitions for America, 1978 - present.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Founder, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="American Legislative Exchange Council" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>, 1973; Director, 1975 - 1978.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Founding President, The Heritage Foundation, 1973 - 1974.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">President, Chief Operating Officer, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=NET&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="NET (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">NET</a> - now <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/America%27s_Voice" title="America's Voice" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">America's Voice</a>, public affairs cable channel, April 1991 - October 1997.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Host, Direct Line (Daily talk show on America's Voice), December 1993 - December 1998.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Co-host, Endangered Liberties weekly syndicated TV show on the privacy/technology issues, April 1999 - present.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Executive Producer and Host, Public Disclosure syndicated Investigative show, February 1995 - present.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Member, Board of Directors, NET - now America's Voice, 1991 - 1998.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Political Commentator, BBC, 1989, 1992.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Executive Co-Publisher, Conservative Digest, 1988; Senior Editor, 1985 - 1988; Columnist, 1980 - 1990.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Member, Board of Advisors, Texas Review, University of Texas, Austin, 1986 - 1991.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Radio Commentator, Listen America Radio Network, 1985 - 1988.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Member, Board of Directors, Helen Broadcasting Corporation; WEEI Newsradio, Boston, Massachusetts, January 1984 - May 1990.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Publisher, Election Politics Journal 1983 - 1988; Journal of Family and Culture, 1984 - 1988; and Empowerment!, 1991 - 1994.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Publisher, Family, Law & Democracy Report, 1979 - 1990; The Political Report, 1977 - 1990.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Moderator, Colorado television show from U.S. Senate, 1967 - 1972.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Substitute host, The Michael Reagan Show, The Alan Keyes Show, WMAL, Newstalk 630, Washington.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Press Secretary, U.S. Senator Gordon Allott (Republican, Colorado), 1967 - 1971.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">News Director, KQXI, Denver, Colorado, 1966.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Political Reporter, Weekend Anchorman, CBS - Milwaukee, 1964 - 1965.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Reporter (City Hall, state politics), Milwaukee Sentinel, 1963 - 1964.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">News Director, Announcer, Program Director, WLIP, WAXO-FM, Kenosha, Wisconsin, 1960 - 1963.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Op-ed Contributor, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, etc.</li>

</ul>

Also see Free Congress Foundation web site<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.freecongress.org/about/pweyrich.asp" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">[5]</a> for Weyrich's connections to the Transportation industry and more on his political connections.

<h2 style="background-image: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto;">Related Sourcewatch resources</h2>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Empowerment_Television" title="National Empowerment Television" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">National Empowerment Television</a></li>

</ul>

<h2 style="background-image: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto;">External links</h2>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Paul M. Weyrich (attributed to), <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0303/0303coors.txt" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">The most important legacy of Joe Coors</a>, web posted March 24, 2003.</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Josephine Hearn, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://thehill.com/news/10052004/agenda.aspx" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Quietly, the right shapes its agenda</a>", The Hill, October 5, 2004.</li>

</ul>

<h2 style="background-image: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto;">References</h2>

<li id="cite_note-0" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paul_M._Weyrich#cite_ref-0" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/c/cd/ALEC_Exposed_in_Wisconsin.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcaqaaaanowc2aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaae5jrefuef5lykekgdambdf="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAE5JREFUeF5lykEKgDAMBdF" es="Es" qkiosicburxizjoozohmwex6gwmkcei="QkiosiCBURXIzJooZohmweX6gwmkCeI" oqc2c1fnvnf2ejlqyu0tlk2njy6f="Oqc2C1FnvnF2ejlQYU0tLK2NjY6f" l8v12ti7uhffgdj19b58ewxuqkaaaaabjru5erkjggg="=" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">ALEC Exposed in Wisconsin: The Hijacking of a State</a>, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">ALEC Exposed</a>, May 2012</li>

<li id="cite_note-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paul_M._Weyrich#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> Maria Stainer, Washington Times <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.insightmag.com/news/2008/dec/18/paul-m-weyrich-dead-age-66/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">[1]</a> December 18, 2008</li>

</ol>

</div>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Categories</a>:

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<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Tobacco_documents_biographies" title="Category:Tobacco documents biographies" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Tobacco documents biographies</a></li>

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<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paul_M.Weyrich">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paul_M.Weyrich</a>

==

<li style=" text-align: left;">The late Paul Weyrich, the Founder of Free Congress foundation, made 17 visits to the White House between May 2001 and July 2005, including six visits to President Bush and one to Karl Rove.</li>

</ul>

===

blinded; built the infra: p 53  coors and vigurie $ --> heritage

Free Congress (PACs)

Maoist; grab thectry and capital fill fall

smeared John Tower nomination (waterhsed like Bork?) 55 drunk womaizer (not married at time?)

<a href="http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/8/9/55443/17515">http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/8/9/55443/17515</a>

When Paul Weyrich joined the Young Republicans in the late 1950s, the Party was controlled by what he called "the <a href="http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/weyrich/050401"> Country Clubbers"</a>. "I" writes Weyrich, "came from the wrong side of the tracks."

<blockquote>While I was a useful ornament for the Country Clubbers to display, they were glad there were not lots more like me. They were not anxious to have the great unwashed as part of their organization.</blockquote>

One would think that a young man whose father tended the boiler at a Catholic hospital would chose the Party that favored the working class, but not Weyrich. Instead, he played a major role in transforming the Party of "country clubbers" into the Party of "traditional values."

</div>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<div class="story_body">This is the fifth article in a series on dominionism and the federal government.

As a strategist working for Republican Senator Barry Goldwater in his Presidential bid in 1964, Weyrich and other Goldwater conservatives had a rude awakening. Goldwater was soundly defeated. In fact, that presidential election was one of the most lopsided in U. S. history. Goldwater won only his native state of Arizona and five Deep South states that had been increasingly alienated by Democratic civil rights policies.

After Goldwater's defeat, Weyrich and his colleagues didn't waste any time. They formed the New Right and began the long, steady march to expand the base of their party. Weyrich focused on members of evangelical churches: a very large, mostly apolitical constituency that he vowed to bring into the Republican fold. Obviously, the New Right wasn't going to win over all evangelicals. Some were downright liberal. The New Right targeted members of fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

Later, Goldwater was to become angry about what his Party had become. He lamented to a friend in 1994:

<blockquote>Our problem is with ... the religious extremists whose interpretation is very narrow, and who want to destroy everybody who doesn't agree with them. I see them as betrayers of the fundamental principles of conservatism. A lot of so-called conservatives today don't know what the word means.</blockquote>

Goldwater was speaking to journalist <a href="http://www.loper.org/%7Egeorge/archives/2003/Sep/998.html">Bill Rentschler</a>, when he said those words. Rentschler was another lifelong conservative. He had run the 1968 Nixon campaign in Illinois, and served briefly in the Nixon White House. He twice ran for the G.O.P. nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, and lost both times. Rentschler sees in the politicizing of the Christian Right nothing less than the loss of democracy:

<blockquote>Prepare yourself, fellow Americans, for historic change, the most dramatic and far-reaching change in your lifetime, a sweeping metamorphosis that may alter radically the distinctive, time-honored structure of the fabled American experiment, which has endured for most of the last 225 years.</blockquote>

Goldwater's brand of conservatism couldn't win the White House because people liked the programs that President Roosevelt set up during the New Deal. They counted on receiving their social security checks in their old age. (President Bush discovered this when he tried to privatize social security.)  And without necessarily understanding the complexities of government regulation, people continue to favor protections for the environment, public health, and worker safety.

So Weyrich and his gang set about reframing the political debate. He founded the highly influential Heritage Foundation in 1973 to translate controversial, very conservative beliefs into policy positions.

He went on to found the Free Congress Foundation in 1977 which describes its <a href="http://www.freecongress.org/about/index.asp"> mission</a> on its website:

<blockquote>[O]ur main focus is on the Culture War. Will America return to the culture that made it great, our traditional, Judeo-Christian, Western culture? Or will we continue the long slide into the cultural and moral decay of political correctness? If we do, America, once the greatest nation on earth, will become no less than a third world country.</blockquote>

To fight the Culture War, Weyrich helped draft television preacher Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1979 to head a new political movement that Weyrich coined "the Moral Majority."  How do you politicize a constituency that is mostly apolitical? And how do you get members of that constituency to join the political party that least represents their economic interests? In August of 1980, Weyrich laid out his vision for a new America at a meeting of fundamentalist ministers:

<blockquote>We are talking about Christianizing America. We are talking about simply spreading the gospel in a political context.</blockquote>

So the Republican Party became the Party that would "Christianize America." (There is a very powerful 28- minute documentary made in 1982 that shows the rise of the Moral Majority and includes a scene of Weyrich making the above speech. If you haven't seen it, watch <a href="http://www.theocracywatch.org/audio-video.htm"> Life and Liberty for All Who Believe.</a>)

The Moral Majority burst onto the political scene in 1979 like an earthquake, sending shockwaves throughout the United States. They made up the margin that got Ronald Reagan elected President in 1980, and they managed to defeat five of the most liberal Senators from the U.S. Congress that same year.

Weyrich is one of the founders of American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and served as it's treasurer (1981-1992). ALEC is a coalition of corporate leaders and culture warriors. It will be the topic of a future post.

Weyrich is also one of the founders of the highly secretive Council for National Policy where he has served on the Executive Committee. ABC news wrote a story on the CNP with the subtitle, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121170&page=1">Meet the Most Powerful Conservative Group You've Never Heard Of.</a>

<blockquote>When Steve Baldwin, the executive director of an organization with the stale-as-old-bread name of the Council for National Policy, boasts that "we control everything in the world," he is only half-kidding.

Half-kidding, because the council doesn't really control the world. The staff of about eight, working in a modern office building in Fairfax, Va., isn't even enough for a real full-court basketball game.

But also half-serious because the council has deservedly attained the reputation for conceiving and promoting the ideas of many who in fact do want to control everything in the world.

</blockquote>

The Present

Now that Weyrich's culture warriors have won control of both houses of the U.S. Congress, the White House, and hold four of the nine seats on the U.S. Supreme Court, is Weyrich retiring, sitting back in his rocker to enjoy the fruits of his work? Not at all. He is as active as ever. His Free Congress Foundation holds weekly briefing luncheons attended by many of the most conservative members of Congress, leaders of the most influential Christian Right organizations, and a top administration official from the White House. <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,107219,00.html">Time Magazine</a> reported in April, 2001:

<blockquote>Each Wednesday Rove dispatches a top administration official to attend the regular conservative-coalition lunches held at Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation.</blockquote>

Perhaps most disturbing of all is a strategy paper published by Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation. It is revealing of true Machiavelli and diabolical thinking. The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement was written for CFC by Eric Heubeck.

Here are some samplings of what Katherine Yurica calls the <a href="http://www.theocracywatch.org/yurica_weyrich_manual.htm"> most immoral political program</a> ever adopted by a political movement in this country.

<blockquote>This essay is based on the belief that the truth of an idea is not the primary reason for its acceptance.

Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them. We will endeavor to knock our opponents off-balance and unsettle them at every opportunity. All of our constructive energies will be dedicated to the creation of our own institutions.

We will maintain a constant barrage of criticism against the Left. We will attack the very legitimacy of the Left. We will not give them a moment's rest.

We will use guerrilla tactics to undermine the legitimacy of the dominant regime.

We must reframe this struggle as a moral struggle, as a transcendent struggle, as a struggle between good and evil. (emphasis theirs)

</blockquote>

We hear a lot in the media about the "moral issues" and "values voters" as if opposing gay marriage and abortion define morality while lying to the American public, torturing political prisoners abroad, and destroying the environment are not "moral" issues. You have to give Weyrich's CFC credit for turning the term "morality" on its head.

On April 1, 2005, Weyrich wrote a memo to former Senator John Danforth (R-MO) who is also an Episcopal Priest. Senator Danforth wrote an OP-ED to the New York Times, March 30, 2005, criticizing the religious right.:

<blockquote>BY a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians.

I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law.

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.

</blockquote>

Weyrich's response is fascinating. This personal account of his boyhood in the Republican Party appeared on his <a href="http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/weyrich/050401">Renew America</a> website. He concludes by saying that without the "values voters," the Republicans couldn't get elected dogcatcher:

<blockquote>Do you want to return to the way it was before the religious right became part of the GOP coalition? If that happens, the Republican Party will be dead. Its majorities in both the House and Senate soon would evaporate and the party would be unable to elect a President.

Each new Senator elected in 2004 had the support of the religious right, even Johnny Isakson of Georgia who entered the race as a moderate and who now has pledged to support most pro-life and pro-family initiatives. There is no doubt that John Thune (Mo.), David Vitter (La.), Mel Martinez (Fla.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), Richard Burr (N.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) would not be in the Senate today but for the strong backing of values voters. Would former Senator Danforth care to return to the time when no legislation backed by values voters was passed, even legislation the establishment salivates over, because liberals controlled Congress?

</blockquote>

I admire Paul Weyrich for what he, son of a working class German immigrant, has been able to accomplish. And I, like conservative Republican Bill Rentschler, fear that the "sweeping metamorphosis" Weyrich helped bring about could "alter radically the distinctive, time-honored structure of the fabled American experiment, which has endured for most of the last 225 years."

Previous articles in the series on Dominionism and The Role of The Federal Government:

<a href="http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/6/28/165440/336">Dominionism and The Constitution in Exile Movement</a>

<a href="http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/7/12/11139/0623">House Bill Would Eliminate Most Regulatory Functions Of Federal Government</a>

<a href="http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/7/19/63029/5827">A Culture of Life or Death?</a>

<a href="http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/7/26/153237/346">Follow The Votes</a>

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Weyrich

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