This "Family" member Rachel Maddow had on her show the other night?

[NNN0LHI]

I was half asleep when it came on and dozed off at the commercial break but did this fellow with the bow-tie representing the "Family" actually succeed in making the group seem pretty tame? The guy appeared pretty reasonable to me. Almost like they was no there there? Or was the guy just a good BSer? Thats not usually easy to do with Rachel Maddow doing the interviewing. Did the interview change after the break?

What was your take on the interview if you don't mind me asking?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Don

[waiting]

1. I think that he is right to be outspoken on the Uganda topic

But he did not at all reveal any real information about the Fellowship AKA the Family. I know this from my own personal experience with them. What they really cover up and keep secret is their covert relationships with leaders of despotic government and the fact that they are an arm of the CIA. In an unofficial manner, of course. They have been doing "Christian" work in Africa for many, manyyears, and I don't realy see any good that has come of it. Does Africa seem any better because of their involvement? If anything, the political situations there should be evidence of their real work there, and that has gotten exponentially worse. Never trust what the upper level Fellowship people tell you. It might sontain a seed of truth, but never more than that.

[Winterblues]

4. He said several times that they had NO POLITICAL Agenda

He said there was nothing POLITICAL in anything they did. They are made up of pretty much all Politicians...He is a LIAR

[old mark]

10. My understanding is that the group was founded in the 1930's

to influence politicians to the family's way of thinking, so I somehow doubt he was truthful...hard to believe, I know...

mark

[dgibby]

11. This group both fascinates and repulses me.

Would you be willing to share some of your experiences with them? Also, have you read Jeff Sharlet's book? If so, do you agree or disagree with his take on the group? Thanks!

[waiting]

13. I am willing, and I have shared them in some past thread here

I do agree with Jeff about what he said in his book. But Jeff was only involved at the level of a male person allowed to be in a certain segment of the group. My experience is a bit different, as it had to do with the charitable workings and the Chuck Colson and Prison ministries segment.

[dmr]

16. Do you have a link to that thread?

I'd like to read it.

thanks

:hi:

[waiting]

23. I was just doing a search

and I don't see the thread. Maybe I confused this board with the Daliy Kos.

I'll give a littel info about my involvement with the Fellowship here, if you are interested.

My mother and father were living in NJ and were both in trouble with the law due to drug addiction and stealing to supply their habit. My maternal grandmother was sick with cancer and attended a church in Morristown, NJ. She was concerned about my mother and was afraid that she would be unable to help her if she were to die from the cancer. She asked the congregation of her church to please pray for my mother and to look out for he if they could, if she were to die.

Well, a couple in the congregation took her words to heart and became involved with my mom and trying to rehabilitate her. She eventually moved into their home, as kind of a housekeeper for room and board. They required her to be involved with their Christian charitable efforts and took care of her financially for it. They never paid her, they supplied her needs. When i was eight years old, I moved to Washington DC, where my mother and this couple had moved the previous few years before. First, let me explain that the man in this cuple was the recently retired president of the Mennan Corporation, and had been the previous vice president of Bristol Myers. They were very wealthy. They were involved with the Fellowship. And that is how my mother became involved with the Fellowship.

For much of my very young years, I lived with my paternal grandparents. Until the point that my mom got involved with these folks. After that, it appeared that she was rehabilitated enough to take me back into her care. The couple were living in a luxury condo in Vienna Virginia, and my mother and myself lived in a Christian halfway house on the George Washington University campus, called Agape House. It was also a soup kitchen on certain week nights. I was 8 when i moved in there. I went to Tuesday or Wednesday morning prayer breakfasts in the house in DC called Fellowship house, on Embassy row. Following these meetings, we went to Lorton Prison for Bible fellowship. After that, we did things like help families of prisoners, clean up and repair dilapidated senior citizens care centers and the like. I emceed events at the prison as well. My mother met my step father thorugh the prison fellowship, he was a newly released prisoner, trying to get a fresh start. They were married and the ceremony was presided over by the Reverend Richard Halverson, the Chaplain of the United States Senate. After my mother died, from a heroin overdose, it was the same Rev. Halverson that paid for her funeral and presided over that ceremony as well.

[jaxx]

2. I thought he sounded like he was in the cover up mode.

He knows all these people, but he doesn't know them. 10,000 little family groups all around the world and they're all for the people. Oh hell no. He ditched and twisted his answers and really didn't say anything. I hope another one comes on and she nails them.

[dmr]

17. He gave me the shivers

What was it with him making a big deal out of the cover of Sharlet's book?

Of all the things said about 'the Family', he spent time on minor aspects. Guess that was the point. Run the interview clock down, and say sugar-coating nothing.

My bet is Rachel and her staff are furiously researching this further.

[napi21]

3. I think he was just a good BSer. He kept repeating that the

Family was a global religious org. that doesn't have any "membership" as such, just a group of likeminded people who believe in similar things. When he said they had NO POLITICAL INTENT, I knew he was lying! I've heard way too many comments from other members to believe such drivel.

I suspect Rachel didn't hammer him much is because nobody has any real proof of what they're doing or what their real intent is. Rachel doesn't go after somebody unless she can point to some proof of her accusations.

[waiting]

5. Exactly

They are actually a big part of the military industrial complex, while pretending to be a religious group. That would be true, if they admitted that the only one that they worship, is Mammon.

[Richard D]

6. My impression . . . .

. . . was that it was very much a cover-up and that Rachael allowed it to be so - and that there will be more to come that will show it to be a cover-up.

[valerief]

7. He was a lying sack of shit. nt

[LibertyLover]

8. I didn't see the show, but having read the book by Jeff Sharlet

on the Family, I'd have to say BSer. If a Family member told me it was raining, I'd look out the window to confirm it for myself. The group is elitist to the core and really only wants the creme de la creme of the political and corporate worlds in their ambit. According to Sharlet, back in the 1930s, Abraham Vereide decided that unions were instruments of the devil and actively worked to suppress the longshoremen's union in Seattle using his contacts in the business world. After that he and his group, the Family, went after the big fish and used the small fry to grease their wheels.

[white_wolf]

9. Wow

I'm really slow. When I first saw this thread I thought it was about the Manson Family.

[dgibby]

12. Probably more dangerous in their own way. n/t

[MindPilot]

14. I was curoius about his comment that Jeff Sharlett disowned his book cover

Anyone know if that is true or not?

[waiting]

15. Jeff said that he didn't lke the book's cover, but that

many other things that the guy said were not correct.

[niyad]

18. do you have a link for that? in all the times I have seen jeff, have not heard that.

and rachel didn't say anything other than that she would ask jeff about it.

[waiting]

20. I link to Rachel on Facebook, and it was posted from her page onto mine..

Check out her site and maybe you can find it there? IDK.

[niyad]

21. I don't do facebook

[waiting]

26. Check Rachel's site for her show maybe

you can find it there.

[MindPilot]

19. Not liking the cover is pretty broad

But I got the impression that he was saying the statement on the cover, "The secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power" are not Jeff's words. It seemed like the guy's issue was that the Family is not secret. Well, of course it isn't; not since Jeff's book exposed it.

[grasswire]

22. check your private mail (eom)

[immoderate]

25. It's common for the publisher to design the cover without the author.

--imm

[madmom]

24. A house full of politicians and they don't "do" politics? Nuff said, he's a liar!

[waiting]

27. Did you notice

that it wasn't any person holding public office right now, that agreed to be interviewed by Rachel? And believe me, the only reason that he agreed to this was because of the noted involvement with Ugnada by the Family or Fellowship in the news. They say nothing when it involves our elected officials and their actions, but they don't want to be viewed by the American public as being okay with murdering gays.