The amazing Washington Times. Treated by the larger media as the ‘other’ voice of DC – the assumption being (incorrect as it happens) that The Washington Post is the liberal voice so of course there must be a conservative voice. So sayeth the sayers, which is how we always get to hear from the stars at The Washington Times in the same breath as any mention of The Washington Post.
Anyone who’s been here more than 90 days know that I like to beat this particular horse over and over. And so, to be redundant – cuz I can – let’s take yet anotherr look at those circulation figures.
The Washington Post daily readership: 582,844 souls (as of September 2009, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations,)
The Washington Times daily readership: 37,000 souls. (On October 5, 2010 (page A2), the Times printed that their current circulation was 37,597, down from 49,907 a year earlier; which includes 8,844 free copies and 28,753 paid copies.)
I love that equivalency thing.
And by the way, the Unification Church (the Moonies) have spent almost $2billion – that’s TWO BILLION DOLLARS – keeping this rag afloat.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
The upside of this is that they haven’t used those funds to expand their goofy religion.
LikeLike
Hey! Hadn’t thought of that. Excellent.
LikeLike
To me, the Moonie Times exemplifies the state of modern “journalism.” Where this fishwrap is treated as a legitimate publication by supposedly serious journalists, we find a grand example of overt and absurd propaganda that serves its purpose well.
Think of this: if I were to write an article in my local small town publication, I would receive a small fraction of the pay I would receive had I written the same article for the Washington Times, despite the nearly identical circulation numbers. Prostitution pays, I suppose.
Hell, I have had my picture on the front page of newspaper with nearly five times the circulation of the Sun Myung Moon Grand Unification Lie Machine.
LikeLike
It’s the Washington Press Corps, a universe unto itself, that considers the Wash Times a real paper. I think after congress and lobbyists, the rest of the press probably makes up the bulk of their circulation!
But then they have people like Fred Barnes on teevee and treat him as a very smart journalist. And they do that because they -liberals and conservatives alike – for the most part go to the same parties and eat in the same restaurants.
LikeLike
They provide balance in the Washington news. The facts need to be balanced with a right-wing spin on the facts. On the other side, the left-wing spin is provided by The Onion. 🙂
LikeLike
and Jon Stewart!
LikeLike
Jon Stewart doesn’t just make stuff up like Fox “news” and The Onion do.
LikeLike
I misread your comment – Jon Stewart is the voice of truth. In fact, he’s the classic definition of speaking truth to power and he does it with satire.
LikeLike
I’m surprised they’re still being published, in re: what was going on earlier this year:
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/washington-times/
LikeLike
Welcome owhole1! Those headlines at TPM certainly indicate they’re going down – of course, with less than 20K paid subscribers, one could argue they’re already gone!
LikeLike
The following should appear on the screen whenever any employee of the Moonie Times is interviewed on television:
“The Washington Times is the propaganda arm of the Grand Unification Church, run by convicted con-man billionaire Sun Myung Moon, who claims to be Jesus. The Washington Times is only one of the myriad venues (both legal and illicit) through which Moon purchases influence in the governments of the United States and his native South Korea.”
LikeLike
“The upside of this is that they haven’t used those funds to expand their goofy religion.”
Lord I wish that were true. Moon has stated his isn’t a religion. Long story but that is the tug that the schism is about in the UC now. He never intended to be a religion. He doesn’t really care about you converting – he absorbs and influences over time. He wants religions to mesh under his influence – no need for converts – better you work in your community and do his work. If you call yourself a Jew all the better, then you can help bring Jews into his web. Sure he’d love it if the world bowed to him but he doesn’t have to have that. He has proved he can do wonders with a small membership, a few key operatives and fronts here and there. Heck, his “church” dropped in membership from 16,000 to 14,000 by 2005 in Korea according to Moon’s son. After 50 years they have 13,00 members in Moon’s home country, the “Fatherland” as they call it. The son is trying to revamp their image and he is in Korea.
They are working on getting the United Nations to ad a theocratic mechanism to its structure. Many nations now support it, some I suspect, who don’t know the Moon agenda or role. Hillary Clinton sent a letter of support to the Moon front handling that one.
Moon’s is a world wide political and intelligence operation. His “religion” is Korea being number one, and other nations being right wing, union hating, homophobic and as close to theocratic as he can get it. Right wing politics is his religion but if he needs to put on another skin to get you, he will.
No one, no one outspent Moon propping up and molding the conservative movement and their thinking over the last thirty years. Some laugh at him, I looked closely and there is no doubt he knew what he was doing. He funded the key players at key times – bailed out Jerry Falwell, funded the father of the attack ad, Terry Dolan, bailed out Richard Viguerie, created fronts to gather the religious right for political power. One of his operatives boasts that churches across America still use his organizing template. Just skimming the surface here. He uses the paper many ways including as an intelligence gathering operation for his organization and its friends. He brags about using it as an intel asset.
Moon says he has “moonized” America and in many ways he has. The media won’t mention this – ya think Beck would tell his followers in the middle of his railing against Soros, that the number one funder of the right the last 30 years, the man who spent billions in overseas dollars, much of it swindled from widows in Japan, to mold their minds is a man who calls himself the messiah? Moon. The guy most older conservatives, Beck’s viewers, would tell you they thought he was in jail or dead if you asked them? haha
The religious extremists fear that they will be mislead by a false messiah, they ALREADY have been!
I have to go but…
You all seem to quite interested, can I suggest some video if you have not seen it? One’s a 1991 panel discussion featuring three former editors of Moon’s media. All three speak, then there is a Q&A. They are excellent speakers and will explain how the Moon org operates. Moon has bragged that he has used the WT to gather intelligence. The second speaker, Micheal Warder who was a follower also, explains how Moon uses his media as an influence and intelligence operation. He also explains how a reporter working for the paper can be a part of the operation and not know it.
Watch this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9008719207533458404#
and the first two videos here (they are from the mid eighties)
http://www.allentwood.com/multimedia.html
Those will help one see the bigger picture of what the WT and the Moon org is about. good luck…enjoyed the post.
LikeLike
“Heck, his “church” dropped in membership from 16,000 to 14,000 by 2005 in Korea according to Moon’s son. After 50 years they have 13,00 members in Moon’s home country, the “Fatherland” as they call it”
sorry for the butcher job
should have read:
Heck, his “church” membership in Korea dropped from 16,000 in 60s to 14,000 by 2005 according to Moon’s son. After 50 years they have 14,000 members in Moon’s home country, the “Fatherland” as they call it.
LikeLike
Wow Ned – so much info here to digest. I will come back to this comment in a few days when Christmas is over. You know your stuff and I’d love to talk about it.
Meanwhile, welcome!
LikeLike
I don’t see an addy for you. Do you have access to my email address in this post? If so, email me.
LikeLike
I am curious. What is described has to be an expensive undertaking. If the Moonies are going backward in numbers, where does all of the money come from ? I mean, we know how Georgie Soros made his money.
LikeLike
And what in the world does George Soros have to do with any of this?
LikeLike
Moon apparently made his money in Korea where he built what we call a mega-church with congregations all over the country. And like today’s televangelists, he solicited money from the faithful and began living a lavish life in the style of French kings. When he came here, members had to sign over thier assets to ‘the church’ which financed his political activities.
Read Ned, Ned (above) for a good overview of who he is.
LikeLike
Their new skin changes, they claim to be adding members.
Moon is funded by many methods – known and unknown – one who studied him felt it was Japanese industrialist who were doing some of the funding. Of course our “free” trade policy and lack of protections for our industries is great for them. Others know Moon has been involved with people who put on the Cocaine coup in South America and think he also has received drug money. He owns many businesses, most of which they have claimed at times make no money. All of them started with low cost or “free” labor. The WT was started on the backs of 200 members who did not take money. They had a “payroll revolt” and started cashing their checks after the paper was going. The union hating Moon built his empire on “free” or low paid wages. Moon controls the sushi industry in the USA. He supplies 7 out of 9 sushi places in the country as Chi Tribune reported a few years ago.
Now all this is in flutter because his son who broke from the organization in 2009(publicly)managed to put his loyalists on the board of the front that controls huge swaths of Moon businesses and real estate, UCI. Moon owns like 4,000 square miles of Paraguay on land over the largest supply of fresh water in the world. His favorite shills, the Bushes have land near his. Anyway, the son has control of much of the land and businesses the members slaved away for 50 years to give to Moon. He recently sold the WT back to his father. Strange but true.
One well known and documented source of his cash is the money they swindle in Japan, literally targeting widows with their scams. They run elaborate recruiting and money making scams in Japan and have for decades. They prey upon a culture that was never proselytized like Korea and is not well versed in the fact that people will present themselves as “religious” and yet scam them. Japan’s culture makes your ancestors well being – living and dead important. The Moon org preys on that vulnerability.
Though they change techniques when caught, you can read how the scams basically work in part two here: http://tinyurl.com/39ejt
The Moon orgs leaders have been been arrested for swindling as the nation of Japan tries to have freedom of religion while dealing with this unscrupulous organization. There mistake is the same as others have made, buying into the idea that the UC is a religion. Last year the head of the UC in Japan resigned to take some heat off of them.
The association that has fought the UC and stood up for the citizens of Japan, gives the total number of claims against the UC at over 30,000 since they started fighting back in 1987. By 2008 the dollar amount of their claims topped one billion US dollars and these figure represent less than a tenth the actual damages as the people of Japan are not quick to file suits, especially when they have lost face by being so deceived.
This is not just selling overpriced items like pagodas or flowers. They convince their victims through elaborate ruses that they control the spiritworld and the only way to save their loved ones from suffering in the after life and the only way to keep their children OK in the current life is to fork over money to Moon. The head of the UC boasts that one family recently sold their home, car and even cashed in their children’s college funds to give it all to Moon. The head of the UC said they “donated” while “in tears” as the family moved into a small apartment. He held this family up as an example for other members.
But Japan has been the primary cash cow for the UC all along, they admit this. They admit that without the money from Japan they couldn’t do diddly. Cash from Japan was “earmarked” for the WT. But ultimately, Moon did with the cash whatever he wished, whenever he wished.
Let be clear here though, comparing what Moon has done to what Soros does is BS. Soros has spent a pittance on politics compared to Moon. Moon uses mystery sourced cash from over seas. Soros is a US citizen, Moon is not. Soros has spent billions supporting emerging democracies. Moon has spent billions with a goal of subduing the planet, “the natural subjugation of the American government and people” under his “messianic” ideology, making Korea number one in the world and has stated his intention to end “American style democracy”. US News and World Report stated that by 1989 Moon’s “church” had ties to virtually every conservative organization in DC. Soros is a bit player compared to Moon.
– here this is how James Whelan, the first editor of the WT described what they were doing in 1991 – Moon had a fork in our political system by the early 90s, imo:
http://tinyurl.com/yqqbmz
“They (the Moonies) are subverting our political system. They’re doing it through front organizations–most of them disguised–and through their funding of independent organizations–through the placement of volunteers in the inner sanctums of hard-pressed organizations. In every instance–in every instance–those who attend their conferences, those who accept their money or their volunteers, delude themselves that there is no loss of virtue because the Moonies have not proselytized. That misses the central, crucial point: the Moonies are a political movement in religious clothing. Moon seeks power, not the salvation of souls. To achieve that, he needs religious fanatics as his palace guard and shock troops. But more importantly, he needs secular conscripts–seduced by money, free trips, free services, seemingly endless bounty and booty–in order to give him respectability and, with it, that image of influence which translates as power.”
LikeLike
Pingback: Netroots Nation, the liberal media and who’s making the money buddy? | Whatever Works