Religion Mun kor

After the mass weddings, newlyweds were commanded to remain apart for months or years in preparation for their first sexual encounter. Moon believed that painstaking techniques were necessary for the "blood exchange" that would prevent a repeat of the Garden of Eden. It's not in the Bible, but Moon's revelation to believers is that Eve misused the love organ by fornicating with Lucifer.

What it means is that the Second Generation, the kids who grew up in the church, are fragile creations who must not be fouled. "We have to drain this Satanic blood, and fill it with God's blood," Moon said in 2002. Working up enough fury to harangue a stadium, he directed his words at an intimate gathering of American teens in blue T-shirts. Sired under his plan, created by his pairings, they are expected to live sinless lives. This is all on video: a scene of harsh adult-child relations that could have been a scene in a Roald Dahl book. A pretty girl of about fifteen, her face uplifted as if hoping for mercy, watches as this visitor to our shores stands cocky, collar splayed open across his jacket, before a banner commending him, not them: "Congratulations, True Parents." Twice-married himself, Moon demands chastity. "We still have this fallen blood running through our organs," he says through a translator. "So we have to protect our love organ so that no more mistakes can be made there."

A furious command in Korean, then a waving of hands. The translation comes: "If you cannot make your mind and body united, you are bound to Hell." Tears run down the girl's cheek. And the American teens chant a familiar formula along with the newspaper publisher:

True love!

True life!

True lineage!

Another girl, fifteen, sits up front, angry. Moon has been talking like that as long as she could remember: to make them feel unworthy, she thinks. She has drifted away from the church and only attended because all her friends were in the "Blue Shirt Mafia." But this will be the last harangue she comes to. Friends of hers have been shunned by the Family for having sex. Impure sex, according to Moon, does worse than ruin people-it undoes God's work for generations.

A pang of disruption, a tearing in the fabric of society, runs through Moon's 1970s press. A Montreal reporter rode along while family and friends plotted to restore a young, agnostic Jewish Canadian convert, Benji Carroll, to his former life. The new Benji was frightful to them. Now he refused to see them without a spiritual minder. His new family were the brothers and sisters of his sales force. On the highway, they pounded on the van walls and he sobbed for God to erase his shameful weakness: "Get out, get out, Satan. Get out of my body, get out of my mind, Satan, Satan."

They kidnapped him, drove him to a safehouse, and stuck him in a room with a cult buster: Aylsworth Crawford "Ford" Greene III, whom the Moonies called the Servant of Satan. As if they needed another sign he lived up to the title, he was the godson of their enemy, Sen. James Buckley (R-NY) from the Dole hearings.

Like some hippie Bruce Wayne, the intense Ford Greene was born into privilege but wounded by past tragedies, so that he fought like a man with nothing to lose. Greene's socialite mother, Daphne, wife of a prominent San Francisco corporate attorney, kept boxes of files on the movement, which had claimed two of her children. There were reams: internal church handbooks, press clippings, and transcriptions from the Moon world of speeches given to his inner sanctum: "The world really is our stage," reads one. "The money is there, and I will earn that money. I will reap that harvest. And you will become soldiers, trained soldiers." And here the royal stenographer has appended, "[Applause]."

While his sister, Catherine Greene Ono, stayed in the movement, Greene walked out, his head spinning. He spent months afterward, he says, waking up in a panic, afraid of being the twentieth-century Judas. Then came what he calls his greatest failing. When the family kidnapped his sister in hopes of deprogramming her, she smashed a juice bottle, cut herself with a shard, and had to be hospitalized, giving her opportunity to rejoin the movement. Newspaper reports said church youth were regularly trained in such tactics.

No Republican, Greene is known today in San Anselmo, California, for the marquee on the building that is his law office, overlooking the main drag in this Marin County town, Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, asking drivers to "defy evil Bushism." But his godfather, Buckley, was the older brother of conservative lion William F. Buckley, whose nephew is conservative media watchdog Brent Bozell III, who would one day sit on the board of a group funded by the Reverend Moon.

In 1978, supplementing his antique dealership, Greene, a commanding presence, charged a flat fee of $750 per mind. Carroll's was his thirty-eighth and one of his toughest – maybe even too intelligent to crack, he wondered. "Love me, Benji," Greene challenged him, forehead to forehead. "Love Satan." He began a cross-examination:

"Your eyes are vacant, your veins are sticking out, your pupils are dilated and your skin is pale …. How is selling flowers to a penniless old woman helping to save the world from selfishness? … You think you're learning to love … but actually you're learning to hate! Hate sex, hate your family, hate yourself … all in the name of loving. What kind of love is that?

Finally, the ice crumbled: Carroll's parents were no longer Satan's minions but returned to being his loved ones. There were tears. "I feel … like my mind was wrapped in an elastic band," Carroll said. That story became the 1981 movie Ticket to Heaven, with Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall as a perky recruiter for a thinly disguised re-creation of the Moonies. She leads childlike group bonding activities-"Choo-choo, choo-choo, POW!" the chant at Booneville went-breaking down Benji's resistance to the sermons about saving the world through fund-raising.

In 1982, Moon was convicted of tax fraud. "Obedience to the law of diminishing returns may cost this little king 18 months from his countinghouse," People wrote in the magazine's roundup of the year's most intriguing people. He went to prison in 1984, and that was around the last time most people last thought about him.

In footage taken in 2002 – apparently at the anniversary party for the Washington Times – the Rev. Sun Myung Moon swung his arm in ax-handle blows while he demanded that all Christian churches abandon the symbol of the cross. "Revolution!" he said. "Revolutionary movement! All the crosses down. Take them down."

In his visions of the afterlife, even Jesus had been frustrated by mankind's inability to move past the crucifixion and focus on Moon. And now God, according to the Unification Church, had told the Reverend Moon to ensure the cross no longer hindered our appreciation of him. "On June 11, 2001," read the official account, "lightning struck down the cross decorating the front of the Unification Theological Seminary"-an idyllic former Catholic monastery along the Hudson River in upstate New York. "In view of this act of God, our True Father initiated the 'taking down the cross' movement. Unificationist leaders and diverse theologians have presented many profound reasons for the taking down of the cross."

It was left to Moon's American ministers to invent a palatable reason for a war on the symbol of Christianity. It was decided that "Trade Your Cross for a Crown," a reference to a beloved American Protestant hymn, would fit nicely into tradition.

I will cling to that old rugged cross

And trade it some day for a crown.

The bespectacled composer of "The Old Rugged Cross," a Methodist minister from an Ohio coal-mining town, would probably have been surprised by what the Rev. Sun Myung Moon did with his message. When George Bennard wrote the song in 1912, he meant no slight to the cross-in fact, his life was memorialized in small-town Reed City, Michigan, by one three stories tall. The crown, he meant to say, is your heavenly reward. But Moon openly jeers at the notion that "Jesus is coming in the clouds" – his official description of Christian belief-on the basis that it doesn't jibe with the Old Testament. Instead, he has claimed for some time that the kingdom has already arrived, here, in swampy, corrupt Washington, D.C.

Which means the time to ditch the cross is now. It is his obstacle.

A funeral party was dispatched to Jerusalem. To bury the cross six feet deep, the original plan, according to volume 22, number 6 of the church's Unification News, came from Moon's lips: "Bury the cross in Golgotha where Jesus was crucified," he said. But they got there and a cathedral was in the way. "[T]he floor is all made of marble," the report said.

So they settled for leaving a little cross there, hung with Moon's yellow and blue flag, and headed in the predawn to a funeral a mile away in Potter's Field, on May 18, 2003-Easter in Jerusalem.

The pilgrims gathered around a shallow grave, cut into the clay earth of the two-thousand-year-old burial ground traditionally believed to have been purchased with the silver Judas earned by betraying Jesus.

At bottom lay a four-foot-long cross. While holy men looked on, undertakers draped it under the flag of the Unification Church, before posting photos on the Web. "After the prayer," the report said, "the participants put soil on the cross one by one, repenting for the false faith for 1700 years."

After breakfast, according to the Unification News, they held a 10 A.M. conference and heard that a Palestinian suicide bomber struck Jerusalem right after sunrise – a sign, said the church journalist, that "Satan attempted to stop this historical conference desperately." The travelers then discussed the next command from the Reverend for reuniting the religions.

"Have Jewish people repent for the sin of killing Jesus," Moon had said.

After a difficult discussion, a rabbi, unnamed, agreed to apologize for the crime of the Jews, and the guests raised a glass of Holy Wine.

John Gorenfeld writes for Radar magazine. He's the author of "Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom" (Polipoint Press, 2008).

http://www.alternet.org

The Money Behind Moon's Washington Times

By Rory O'Connor, December 2, 2009.

Where did all the money come from to keep the money-losing Moonie paper afloat all these years?

Editor’s note: This is part two of a series on the Washington Times. You can read Part One Here.

Of all the many questions swirling around the fate of Sun Myung Moon’s daily newspaper the Washington Times, none is as puzzling as this: where did all the money come from to keep the paper afloat all these years?

Like many American newspapers, Washington’s “other” daily is now hemorrhaging money. Unlike most, however, red ink is nothing new for the Times, which has been a major money loser ever since its inception in 1982. But money has never been a problem for the man behind the Times – convicted felon and self-styled “Messiah” Sun Myung Moon. As I reported in my previous post, the Korean cult leader spent well over a billion dollars in just the decade of 1982-92 – at a time when most of his operations in America were losing substantial sums:

• more than $800 million on the Washington Times;

• hundreds of millions on national periodicals;

• tens of millions on electronic media;

• at least $40 million on New York newspapers;

• more than $10 million on a New York publishing house;

• millions on World Media Association junkets and conferences;

• millions more on New Right organizations, including the American Freedom Coalition;

• well over $100 million on real estate, including the New Yorker Hotel in midtown Manhattan;

• at least $40 million on commercial fishing operations;

• and at least $75 million on related projects…

Along the way, the Washington Times became the centerpiece of a successful effort by Moon to influence American public opinion and promote a conservative political agenda in the United States. His movement, once merely labeled a cult, is now most accurately described as a conglomerate. From his extensive media operations in the nation’s capital… To substantial real estate holdings throughout the United States… And from large commercial fishing operations… To advanced high-tech and computer industries, a Fifth Avenue publishing house, and literally dozens of other businesses, foundations, associations, institutes, and political and cultural groups… Moon and his money became a force to be reckoned with – in large part because, as award-winning investigative reporter Robert Parry has written, his daily mouthpiece the Times “targeted American politicians of the center and left with journalistic attacks – sometimes questioning their sanity, as happened with Democratic presidential nominees Michael Dukakis and Al Gore. Those themes then resonate through the broader right-wing echo chamber and into the mainstream media.”

Exactly how much money the Washington Times itself loses annually is still a closely held secret – as is the specific source of the funds. But it’s safe to assume that Moon’s American money comes from overseas – as he himself told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June, 1984:

Moon: “Several hundred million dollars have been poured into America, because this nation will decide the destiny of the world, these contributions are primarily coming from overseas.”

But where precisely does the money come from? As I first reported in my PBS Frontline documentary The Resurrection of Reverend Moon, most of Moon’s money comes from Japan.

One early Moon patron was a man named Ryoichi Sasakawa, once one of the richest men and the chief political brokers in Japan. Sasakawa’s money came from his monopoly on the motorboat racing industry. (Legalized gambling on the sport is a multi-billion dollar a year industry in Japan.) According to author Pat Choate, whose book Agents of Influence examined Japan’s effort to shape America’s policy and politics, “When Reverend Moon expanded his operations inside Japan, he asked Sasakawa to be one of the principal advisers to his Church inside Japan. Many of their operations – the Sasakawa operations, the Moon operations – seem to parallel each other. They operate in many of the same ways – giving away money, a great deal of attention to media and media organizations, the establishment of think tanks and other policy organizations that operate across national borders, and the maintenance of a very right wing conservative focus.”

In addition, Moon’s Japanese fund-raising machinery is another central source of his financial might in the United States.

Substantial sums appear to be the result of so-called ‘spiritual sales” or swindles. The church concentrates on attracting older people, particularly women, and then pressures them to turn over their assets or take large loans against them, turning the money over to the church. Many are specifically told to donate money so it may be used for the Washington Times.

With all that money coming into the US from abroad – much of it illegally – who controls what is done with it? That same question was asked – and answered – decades ago by the U.S. Congress in the so-called Fraser Report, the result of Minnesota Democratic Congressman Donald Fraser’s “Koreagate” investigation, in part a probe into Moon’s relationship to the Korean CIA and the buying of political influence on Capitol Hill:

“Moon provides considerably more than spiritual guidance to his worldwide organization. The statements and testimony of former members and officials in Moon’s Organization, evidence gleaned from internal UC publications, memos, other documents, and financial records all show that Moon exercises substantial control over temporal matters. These include the transfer of funds from one organization to another, personnel changes and allocations, the structure and operation of fundraising teams, the timing and nature of political demonstrations, and the marketing of goods produced by the organization’s businesses. As in any organization so large and complex, there are advisers, lieutenants, and managers with varying degrees of influence and authority to speak and act on behalf of the organization; however, there is every indication that regardless of the title he might or might not hold in any one corporate structure, Moon can and often does make the final decision on a course of action.”

The findings of the Fraser committee further describe the organization’s control this way:

(1)The UC and numerous other religious and secular organizations headed by Sun Myung Moon constitute essentially one international organization. This organization depends heavily upon the interchangeability of its components and upon its ability to move personnel and financial assets freely across international boundaries and between businesses and nonprofit organizations.

(2) The Moon Organization attempts to achieve goals outlined by Sun Myung Moon, who has substantial control over the economic, political, and spiritual activities undertaken by the organization in pursuit of those goals.

The Fraser Committee’s final report said Moon was the “key figure” in an “international network of organizations engaged in economic and political” activities. The Committee uncovered evidence that the Moon Organization “had systematically violated U.S. tax, immigration, banking, currency, and Foreign Agents Registration Act laws.” It also detailed how the Korean CIA paid Moon to stage demonstrations at the United Nations and run a pro-South Korean propaganda effort.

“We determined that their primary interest, at least in the United States at that time, was not religious at all, but was political,” said Michael Hershman, the Fraser Committee’s chief investigator. “It was an attempt to gain power and influence and authority.”

The Fraser Committee recommended that the White House form a task force to continue to investigate Moon – but that never happened.

Besides the money ‘invested’ in the Washington Times, Moon also invested in paid speaking fees to political figures, such as former President George H.W. Bush, who appeared at Moon-organized functions in the United States, Asia and South America. (At the 1996 launch of Moon’s South American newspaper, Bush hailed Moon as “the man with the vision.”) In 2004, he was even given space in the Senate’s Dirksen building for a coronation of himself as “savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.” (The Hill, June 22, 2004)

Now that the investments have paid off for him and his family is being split apart in a struggle to succeed him, don’t be surprised to see Moon & Co. avoid a nasty succession battle at the Times, and instead simply fold the money-sucking daily… But even if the Washington Times – Moon’s most expensive political project was a newspaper – does soon become history, history will also “surely record that Moon’s $3 billion-plus investment succeeded in buying a remarkable degree of Washington influence – and legal protection – for his dubious political/business/religious empire.”

As former Washington Times editor and publisher James Whelan concluded, “Washington is the most important single city in the world. If you can achieve influence, if you can achieve visibility, if you can achieve a measure of respect in Washington, then you fairly automatically are going to achieve these things in the rest of the world. There is no better agency, or entity or instrument that I know of for achieving power here or almost anywhere else – than a newspaper.”

Filmmaker and journalist Rory O'Connor is the author of "Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio" (AlterNet Books, 2008). O'Connor also writes the Media Is A Plural blog.

http://www.opednews.com

N. Korea from a Historical Perspective – Bush and Rev. Moon Revisited

By Robert Parry, Oct. 11, 2000

Editor’s Note: As the nuclear crisis with North Korea worsens, a little-known part of the story is how one of America’s favorite right-wing financial benefactors, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, secretly funneled money to the communist leadership in Pyongyang while also supporting the Bush Family in the United States.

Though holding an American residency permit and boasting about the influence that his Washington Times gives him in the U.S. capital, Moon breezily ignored U.S. legal embargoes against financial dealings with North Korea’s dictatorship, as Consortiumnews.com reported on Oct. 11, 2000, less than a month before the election that restored the Bush Family to power: (editors Note – Consortium News)

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s business empire, which includes the conservative Washington Times, paid millions of dollars to North Korea’s communist leaders in the early 1990s when the hard-line government needed foreign currency to finance its weapons programs, according to U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency documents.

The payments included a $3 million “birthday present” to current communist leader Kim Jong Il and offshore payments amounting to “several tens of million dollars” to the previous communist dictator, Kim Il Sung, the partially declassified documents said.

Moon apparently was seeking a business foothold in North Korea. But the transactions also raise legal questions for Moon and could cast a shadow on George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, given the Bush family’s longstanding financial and political ties to Moon and his organization.

Besides making alleged payments to North Korea’s communist leaders, the 80-year-old founder of the South Korean-based Unification Church has funneled large sums of money, possibly millions of dollars as well, to former President George H.W. Bush.

One well-placed former leader of Moon’s Unification Church told me that the total earmarked for former President Bush was $10 million. The father of the Republican nominee has declined to say how much Moon’s organization actually paid him for speeches and other services in Asia, the United States and South America.

At one Moon-sponsored speech in Argentina in 1996, Bush declared, “I want to salute Reverend Moon,” whom Bush praised as “the man with the vision.”

Bush made these speeches at a time when Moon was expressing intensely anti-American views. In his own speeches, Moon termed the United States “Satan’s harvest” and claimed that American women descended from a “line of prostitutes.”

During this year’s presidential campaign, Moon’s Washington Times has attacked the Clinton-Gore administration for failing to take more aggressive steps to defend against North Korea’s missile program. The newspaper called the administration’s decisions an “abdication of responsibility for national security.”

A Helping Hand

Yet, in the 1990s when North Korea was scrambling for the resources to develop missiles and other advanced weaponry, Moon was among a small group of outside businessmen quietly investing in North Korea.

Moon’s activities attracted the attention of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for monitoring potential military threats to the United States.

Though historically an ardent anticommunist, Moon negotiated a business deal in 1991 with Kim Il Sung, the longtime communist leader, the DIA documents said.

The deal called for construction of a hotel complex in Pyongyang as well as a new Holy Land at the site of Moon’s birth in North Korea, one document said. The DIA said the deal sprang from a face-to-face meeting between Moon and Kim Il Sung in North Korea from Nov. 30 to Dec. 8, 1991.

“These talks took place secretly, without the knowledge of the South Korean government,” the DIA wrote on Feb. 2, 1994. “In the original deal with Kim [Il Sung], Moon paid several tens of million dollars as a down-payment into an overseas account,” the DIA said in a cable dated Aug. 14, 1994.