#President George H.W. Bush
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A bipartisan group of former national security officials and lawyers is calling for new restrictions on a president's ability to deploy troops on U.S. soil, arguing that existing law is "antiquated" and grants too much power to one person.
The group convened at the invitation of The American Law Institute to examine the Insurrection Act of 1807, which former President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke should he return to the White House, ostensibly to address what are now-declining rates of crime in major cities.
In a statement, Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel under former President Barack Obama, argued that the Insurrection Act itself is “poorly drafted" and full of "vague or obsolete language." It "has been clear for decades that this antiquated law needs serious revision," he said.
As it stands, the Insurrection Act permits the president to deploy U.S. armed forces domestically in response to outbreaks of violence, including rebellion against federal or state governments. It was last used by former President George H.W. Bush in 1992 in response to riots in Los Angeles sparked by the acquittal of police officers in the Rodney King case.
Jack Goldsmith, who served as an assistant attorney general under former President George W. Bush, said in a statement that he agrees the law “gives any president too much unchecked power." He and others in the group would like to see Congress eliminate outdated language, such as references to "obstructions" and "assemblages," that could be cited to justify another deployment; they would also like to see deployments subject to a statutory limit of 30 days, with any extension requiring lawmakers' consent.
Included among those calling for reform is a former member of the Trump administration. John Eisenberg, who served as a lawyer for the National Security Council under Trump, told The New York Times that the Insurrection Act, as currently written, should alarm Democrats and Republicans alike.
“This is something of great importance regardless of what party you are in because, obviously, it is an area that can abused,” Eisenberg said. “If the triggers, for example, are too vague, the risk is that it can be used in circumstances that do not really warrant it. So it is important to tighten up the language to reduce that risk.”
#us politics#news#salon#The American Law Institute#Insurrection Act of 1807#Donald Trump#Bob Bauer#project 2025#President George H.W. Bush#Rodney King riots#la riots#Jack Goldsmith#John Eisenberg#The New York Times#2024#us congress
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Quarrel of the Colours
November is National Native American Heritage Month, as dedicated by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. I don’t know why, but a search through my archives shows that I have not posted about this very important month before. My best guess is that in November my focus is mainly on elections and the upcoming holidays, but as I need a break from talk of politics today and am seriously lacking in…
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#&039;Quarrel of the Colours&039;#Jon S. Randal Peace Page#National Native American Heritage Month#Native American folklore#origin of the rainbow#President George H.W. Bush
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Lecture 20: Pro-violence or protest? You decide. Rapper Ice T (real name: Tracy Lauren Marrow), originally from Newark, New Jersey, performs his uber-controversial song “Cop Killer” live in 1991, a key example of so-called Gangsta Rap. Notice Ice T mentions Henry Rollins of Black Flag! (Also note the heavy punk influence in the song…) “Cop Killer” triggered a massive nationwide backlash against Ice T, including condemnations from police forces across America and from President George H.W. Bush himself.
#Ice T#Cop Killer#1991#Hip Hop#Gangsta Rap#Henry Rollins#Black Flag#Punk#President George H.W. Bush#Rap
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Waking Up In Dallas: November 22, 1963.
Two American Presidents woke up in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Neither of them were the two men who actually served as President on that tragic day -- John F. Kennedy or Lyndon B. Johnson.
The 37th President of the United States, 50-year-old Richard Nixon, had arrived in Dallas on November 20th for a conference of the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages on behalf of Pepsi-Cola, a company that his New York law firm was representing. On November 21st, Nixon sat down with reporters in his room at the Baker Hotel, where he criticized many of the policies of President Kennedy, his 1960 opponent, who would be arriving in Dallas the next day. That night, Nixon and Pepsi executives including actress Joan Crawford, who had been married to Pepsi's chairman, Alfred Steele, until his death in 1959, were entertained at the Statler Hilton.
In the early morning of November 22nd, a car dropped Nixon off, alone, at Love Field, the Dallas airport that would host President and Mrs. Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and Mrs. Johnson, and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife in just a few hours. Nixon later remembered the flags and signs displayed along the motorcade route that Kennedy would soon follow. Nixon approached the American Airlines ticket counter to check-in for his flight to New York City and told the attendant, "It looks like you're going to have a big day today."
Nixon landed several hours later in New York at an airport that would be renamed after John F. Kennedy a month later. He described what happened next in his 1978 autobiography, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon:
Arriving in New York, I hailed a cab home. We drove through Queens toward the 59th Street Bridge, and as we stopped at a traffic light, a man rushed over from the curb and started talking to the driver. I heard him say, "Do you have a radio in your cab? I just heard that Kennedy was shot." We had no radio, and as we continued into Manhattan a hundred thoughts rushed through my mind. The man could have been crazy or a macabre prankster. He could have been mistaken about what he had heard; or perhaps a gunman might have shot at Kennedy but missed or only wounded him. I refused to believe that he could have been killed.
As the cab drew up in front of my building, the doorman ran out. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. "Oh, Mr. Nixon, have you heard, sir?" he asked. "It's just terrible. They've killed President Kennedy."
The close 1960 Presidential election changed the relationship between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, but they had once been very close. When they first entered Congress together in 1947, they considered each other personal friends, and when Nixon ran for the Senate from California in 1950, JFK stopped into Nixon's office and dropped off a financial contribution to Nixon's campaign from Kennedy's father. Nixon would later write that he felt as bad on the night of Kennedy's assassination as he had when he lost two brothers to tuberculosis when he was very young. That night, he wrote an emotional letter to Jacqueline Kennedy:
Dear Jackie,
In this tragic hour Pat and I want you to know that our thoughts and prayers are with you.
While the hand of fate made Jack and me political opponents I always cherished the fact that we were personal friends from the time we came to the Congress together in 1947. That friendship evidenced itself in many ways including the invitation we received to attend your wedding.
Nothing I could say now could add to the splendid tributes which have come from throughout the world to him.
But I want you to know that the nation will also be forever grateful for your service as First Lady. You brought to the White House charm, beauty and elegance as the official hostess of America, and the mystique of the young in heart which was uniquely yours made an indelible impression on the American consciousness.
If in the days ahead we could be helpful in any way we shall be honored to be at your command.
Sincerely,
Dick Nixon
•••
On the morning of November 22, 1963, the 41st President of the United States also woke up in Dallas, Texas. George Herbert Walker Bush was the 39-year-old president of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company and chairman of the Harris County, Texas Republican Party, and had stayed the night of November 21st at the Dallas Sheraton alongside his wife, Barbara. Bush was planning a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1964 and making the rounds to line up support amongst many Texans who considered him far too moderate. One of the groups that was strongest in opposition to Bush was the ultra-right wing John Birch Society, which had recently been lodging vehement protests against President Kennedy's upcoming visit to Dallas.
Conspiracy theorists claim that there were far more sinister motives for George Bush being in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Some claim that Bush was a secret CIA operative involved in planning or even carrying out the assassination of President Kennedy. Some even argue that a grainy photograph of a man resembling Bush taken shortly after the assassination proves that Bush was actually in Dealey Plaza at the time of Kennedy's shooting.
He wasn't. He wasn't even in Dallas. We know where George Herbert Walker Bush was at the time of JFK's assassination -- we have plenty of eyewitnesses who can confirm it. While Lee Harvey Oswald was shooting President Kennedy, George Bush was about 100 miles away from Dallas, in Tyler, Texas, speaking at a Kiwanis Club luncheon. Like Nixon, Bush and his wife, Barbara, had also boarded a plane that morning in Dallas -- a private plane that transported them to Tyler for the Kiwanis Club event. While Bush was speaking, word of the President's assassination reached the luncheon and the local club president, Wendell Cherry, leaned over and gave the news to Bush. Bush quickly notified the crowd, and said, "In view of the President's death, I consider it inappropriate to continue with a political speech at this time." He ended his speech and sat down while the luncheon broke up in stunned silence.
Bush's wife, Barbara, wasn't at the Kiwanis Club luncheon. While her husband was speaking, Barbara Bush went to a beauty parlor in Tyler to get her hair styled. As her hair was being done, Barbara began writing a letter to family and heard the news over the radio that JFK had been shot and then that the President had died. In her 1994 memoir, Barbara included the letter, part of which said:
I am writing this at the Beauty Parlor, and the radio says that the President has been shot. Oh Texas -- my Texas -- my God -- let's hope it's not true. I am sick at heart as we all are. Yes, the story is true and the Governor also. How hateful some people are.
Since, the beauty parlor, the President has died. We are once again on a plane. This time a commercial plane. Poppy (George H.W. Bush's family nickname) picked me up at the beauty parlor -- we went right to the airport, flew to Ft. Worth and dropped Mr. Zeppo off (we were on his plane) and flew back to Dallas. We had to circle the field while the second Presidential plane took off. Immediately, Pop got tickets back to Houston, and here we are flying home. We are sick at heart. The tales the radio reporters tell of Jackie Kennedy are the bravest. We are hoping that it is not some far-right nut, but a "commie" nut. You understand that we know they are both nuts, but just hope that it is not a Texan and not an American at all.
I am amazed by the rapid-fire thinking and planning that has already been done. LBJ has been the President for some time now -- two hours at least and it is only 4:30.
My dearest love to you all,
Bar
As Barbara Bush noted in her letter, the Bushes did not stay another night at the Dallas Sheraton on November 22nd, as they had originally planned. They returned to Dallas on the private jet that had transported them to Tyler earlier in the day, and caught a commercial flight home to Houston. The "second Presidential plane" that took off while Bush's plane circled Love Field was the plane that had transported Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to Dallas earlier that day, Air Force Two. Johnson was already heading back to Washington, now on Air Force One, with the casket of John F. Kennedy.
•••
The 37th President of the United States and the 41st President of the United States woke up in Dallas, Texas on the morning of November 22, 1963. The 31st President, 89-year-old Herbert Hoover, was in failing health in the elegant suite he called home at New York's Waldorf-Astoria. Within the next few weeks, he would be visited by the new President, Lyndon Johnson, and President Kennedy's grieving widow, Jackie, and the President's brother, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. The 33rd President, 79-year-old Harry Truman, learned of JFK's death in Missouri, while the 34th President, 73-year-old Dwight D. Eisenhower, heard of the assassination while attending a meeting at the United Nations in New York. Truman and Eisenhower would squash a long, bitter personal feud that weekend while attending Kennedy's funeral in Washington. The 38th President, 50-year-old Michigan Congressman Gerald Ford, was driving home with his wife Betty after attending a parent conference with their son Jack's teacher when they heard the news on the radio in their car. Two days later, President Johnson would call on Ford to serve on the Warren Commission investigating the assassination.
The 39th President, Jimmy Carter was 39 years old and had just gotten off a tractor near the warehouse of his Plains, Georgia peanut farm when a group of farmers informed him of the news of the shooting. Carter found a quiet area, kneeled down in prayer, and when he heard that Kennedy had died, cried for the first time since his father had died ten years earlier. Ronald Reagan, the 40th President, was 52 years old and preparing for a run as Governor of California. A little more than 17 years later, the now-President Reagan would also be shot by a lone gunman in the middle of the day. While Reagan would survive the attempt on his life, it was very nearly fatal and reminded his wife, Nancy, of November 22, 1963. As she was transported to George Washington Hospital following Reagan's shooting, Nancy would later note, "As my mind raced, I flashed to scenes of Parkland Memorial Hospital in Texas, and the day President Kennedy was shot. I had been driving down San Vicente Boulevard in Los Angeles when a bulletin came over the car radio. Now, more than seventeen years later, I prayed that history would not be repeated, that Washington would not become another Dallas. That my husband would live."
The 41st President, Bill Clinton, and the 43rd President, George W. Bush, were both 17 years old and in school -- Bush at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Clinton at Hot Springs High School in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Clinton was in his fourth period calculus class when his teacher was called out of the room and returned to announce that President Kennedy had been killed. Four months earlier, Clinton had traveled to Washington with the Boys Nation program and, during a ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House, pushed his way to the front of the line and shook President Kennedy's hand. The 44th President, Barack Obama, was a 2-year-old living in Hawaii.
•••
The 35th President, 46-year-old John F. Kennedy, would die in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Lyndon B. Johnson, 55, would become the 36th President in Dallas that day. But they woke up that morning in Fort Worth at the Texas Hotel. Kennedy had slept the last night of his life in suite 850 on the eighth floor, now the Presidential suite. LBJ had slept the last night of his Vice Presidency in the much more expensive and elegant Will Rogers Suite on the thirteenth floor. The Secret Service had vetoed the Will Rogers Suite for the President because it was more difficult to secure. It was raining in Fort Worth as they woke up, but the skies had cleared by the time they landed in Dallas. Before breakfast, President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson, and Texas Governor John Connally headed outside and briefly addressed a crowd that had gathered long before the sun had come up in hopes of seeing JFK. Jacqueline Kennedy didn't accompany them outside and President Kennedy joked to the crowd, "Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes her a little longer but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it."
Afterward, they headed inside for breakfast in the Texas Hotel's Grand Ballroom with several hundred guests. The President sent for Mrs. Kennedy to join them, and her late arrival to the breakfast excited the guests in the ballroom. When the President spoke to the group, he joked again, "Two years ago I introduced myself in Paris as the man who had accompanied Mrs. Kennedy to Paris. I'm getting somewhat that same sensation as I travel around Texas." Then he noted, "Nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear."
When the breakfast ended, the Kennedys headed upstairs and had an hour or so to wait before heading to the airport for the short flight to Dallas. It was during this time that Jackie Kennedy saw a hateful ad placed in that morning's Dallas Morning News accusing President Kennedy of collusion with Communists and treasnous activity. Trying to calm Jackie down, the President joked, "Oh, we're heading into nut country today." But a few minutes later, Jackie overheard Kennedy telling his aide, Ken O'Donnell, "It would not be a very difficult job to shoot the President of the United States. All you'd have to do is get up in a high building with a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight, and there's nothing anybody can do."
•••
Even though the trip from Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base to Dallas's Love Field would only take thirteen minutes by air, the trip to Texas was first-and-foremost a political trip -- a kickoff of sorts to JFK's 1964 re-election campaign -- and a grand entrance was needed. So, JFK and Jackie boarded the plane usually used as Air Force One, LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson boarded the plane usually used by the Vice President, Air Force Two, and the huge Presidential party took to the skies, covering thirty miles in thirteen minutes, in order to get the big Dallas welcome that they were hoping for. They landed in Dallas at 11:40 AM, and President Kennedy looked out the window of his plane, saw a big, happy crowd, and told Ken O'Donnell, "This trip is turning out to be terrific. Here we are in Dallas, and it looks like everything in Texas is going to be fine for us."
At 2:47 PM -- just three hours and seven minutes later -- everyone was back on Air Force One as the plane climbed off of the Love Field runway and into the Dallas sky. John F. Kennedy, the 35th President, was in a casket wedged into a space in the rear of Air Force One where two rows of seats had been removed so that it would be fit. Lyndon B. Johnson had officially been sworn in as the 36th President about ten minutes earlier on the plane by federal judge Sarah T. Hughes. On one side of Johnson while he took the oath was his wife, Lady Bird, and on the other side, the widowed former First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, still wearing a pink dress splattered with her husband's blood and brain matter.
Two American Presidents woke up in Dallas on November 22, 1963 -- Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush -- but they weren't in town when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, no matter how many ways conspiracy theorists try to twist the story. The President who died in Dallas that day, John F. Kennedy, and the man who became President in Dallas that day, Lyndon B. Johnson, woke up in Fort Worth on the morning of November 22, 1963. But they'll be forever linked with Dallas -- and the world that woke up the next morning would never be the same again.
#History#JFK Assassination#Assassination of John F. Kennedy#JFK#John F. Kennedy#President Kennedy#Kennedy Assassination#Presidents#Presidential History#Dallas#Richard Nixon#President Nixon#Lyndon B. Johnson#LBJ#President Johnson#Jimmy Carter#President Carter#George H.W. Bush#Bush 41#President Bush#Waking Up In Dallas#11/22/1963#11.22.1963#Lady Bird Johnson#Jacqueline Kennedy#Death of John F. Kennedy#Presidential Assassinations#Assassinations#Presidential Deaths#Death of the President
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a bush sr redraw…muahahaha
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#A 1992 memo from President George H.W. Bush informing his staff not to feed his dog#Ranger#because “Right now he looks like a blimp#a nice friendly appealing blimp#but a blimp”.#Sinatrafan1915#oldschool
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President Putin arrives in Texas, speech at university with George H. W. Bush on November 14, 2001.
#владимир путин#российский президент#vladimir vladimirovich putin#putinedit#george h.w. bush#texas#united states#vladdy daddy#russian president#my edits
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Back in the lead-up to the First Gulf War (1990-1991), for example, another member of the Bush dynasty, President George H. W. Bush, invoked the “new world order”, in his address to Congress on September 11, 1990:
Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective — a new world order — can emerge: a new era — freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world – East and West, North and South – can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor.
And today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak (emphasis added).
Witness U.S. Pres. George H.W. Bush addressing Congress after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
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The term “new world order” as a name applying to a new socialist world government can be traced back at least as far as 1845, to the book The Holy Family by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Amusingly enough, it was attributed to someone on President George H.W. Bush’s staff back in 1990, when Bush turned a lot of heads by endorsing the creation of the “New World Order” and affirming the UN’s key role in it. - How Biden’s Latest “New World Order” Remark Affects You (By Larry Greenly in thenewamerican.com, March 2022)
#first gulf war#gulf war#george h.w. bush#politics#new world order#liberal world order#multipolar world order#united nations#president george h.w bush#peace#literature
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XXX3 December 1
xxx3 December 1
December is a month of wonder, joy, and celebration. It is a time when the chill in the air and the falling snowflakes create a winter’s dream, reminding us to slow down and savor the simple moments of life. The holiday season fills our hearts with love, peace, and goodwill towards all. December is a time for reflection, where we look back on the year gone by and celebrate the…
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#41st President#Antarctic Treaty#Australia#civil rights movement#December 1#Denmark#draft lottery#George H.W. Bush#Iceland#Independence#military activity#Montgomery Bus Boycott#Papua New Guinea#Rosa Parks#Soviet Union#territorial claims#Ukrainian independence referendum#United States.#Vietnam War
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CBS Evening News: Dan Rather-George H.W. Bush Tiff The Day After
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Source:The New Democrat
I haven’t seen this video in about three years and I saw it then on YouTube. And if I heard anything about it as a kid in 1987 when this interview was conducted when I was 11-12 when, I don’t remember. So I don’t remember this interview very well to say the least, but a post about that interview and the interview itself will be on this blog in the future. What I can…
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#1988#1988 Presidential Campaign#America#CBS Evening News#CBS News#Dan Rather#George H.W. Bush#George H.W. Bush For President#New York#New York City#Republican Party#Texas#The 1980s#U.S. Government#United States#Vice President George H.W. Bush#Washington#Washington DC#Youtube
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History suggests it will be tough for him to recover. Biden’s 38% approval rating at this stage in the calendar is lower than that of the last three presidents who went on to lose re-election: Trump (48%), George H.W. Bush (39%) and Jimmy Carter (43%), according to Gallup survey data.
#yemen#jerusalem#tel aviv#current events#palestine#free palestine#gaza#free gaza#news on gaza#palestine news#news update#war news#war on gaza#genocide joe#joe biden#elections 2024
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They would put fuckin anything on cardboard back in the day
#gulf war#H W Bush#bush#the walker family collaborated with the nazis#george h.w. bush#41st president
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From Then To Now ... The Path To Today
Ever wonder how today’s GOP strayed so far from the original “Party of Lincoln”? It didn’t happen overnight, wasn’t the result of just one incident or Supreme Court Ruling, but a series of events starting back in 1964. Political analyst Thom Hartmann tells the story and it is one that is definitely worth your time and effort to read … it was an eye-opener for me.
“How Come Everything the…
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#Civil Rights Act of 1964#evangelical movement#George H.W. Bush#Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich#President Lyndon B. Johnson#Ronald Reagan#Thom Hartmann
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Witness to Dignity: The Life and Faith of George H.W. and Barbara Bush by Reverend Russell Levenson, Jr. #Inspirational #BookReview
George and Barbara Bush were married for more than 70 years. Their pastor recently published a memoir of his time with them during the last decade of their lives. #Witnesstodignity #georgehwbush #barbarabush #episcopalianchurch #faith #inspirationalbook
George and Barbara Bush belonged to and were active members of a Houston church for more than 50 years. The rector of that church, Reverend Russell Jones Levenson, Jr., believes he was invited into private moments with these public individuals so he could serve as a witness: a witness to observe, and a witness to tell. With never-before shared correspondence, experiences, and personal stories,…
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#Barbara Bush#CAVU#College Station#Episcopalian#George Bush#George H.W. Bush#George W. Bush#Houston#Kennebunkport#Maine#Presidential History#Presidents#Skydiving#Texas#U.S. Presidents#Vice President#Witness to Dignity: The Life and Faith of George H.W. and Barbara Bush#World War 2#World War II
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To give a more serious answer to that earlier question about whether any Presidents were able to fly, yes, there were three who were trained as pilots.
The most famous is indeed George H.W. Bush, who was the youngest U.S. Navy aviator during World War II, and flew 58 combat missions in the Pacific during the war. He was shot down during a bombing mission over Chichi Jima, an island in an archipelago between Guam and the Japanese mainland in September 1944 and had to be rescued from the Pacific Ocean by an American submarine. That was just a few months after he was also forced to ditch his TMB Avenger bomber in the ocean -- while it still was fully loaded with the bombs for the mission he was on -- and barely escaped the plane before it exploded.
His son, George W. Bush, had a much-less decorated and much-more maligned military "career", but he was trained as a military aviator in the Texas National Guard. Bush 43's most famous flight was as a passenger while President when he landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln for the infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, but he was definitely a trained pilot.
The first President to earn a pilot's license was actually Dwight D. Eisenhower. Despite his background as a career military officer, Eisenhower was not trained as a military aviator -- he earned a private pilot's license in 1939.
#History#Presidents#Presidential History#Presidential Backgrounds#George H.W. Bush#Bush 41#President Bush#George W. Bush#Bush 43#Dwight D. Eisenhower#President Eisenhower#General Eisenhower#Pilots#World War II#WWII#Pilot's license#Presidential Pilots
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Washington Post: Moon Group Paying Bush for Speeches (1995)
MOON GROUP PAYING BUSH FOR SPEECHES
By Kevin Sullivan; Mary Jordan
September 6, 1995
A series of speeches next week in Japan by former president George Bush, paid for by a group with ties to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, has renewed bitter criticism of the church here in one of its most lucrative fund-raising countries.
Bush and his wife, Barbara, are scheduled to speak at six events in seven days, from Sept. 13 to 19, in a tour sponsored by the Women's Federation for World Peace, whose founder and head is Moon's wife, Hak Ja Han Moon. The Bushes will share the stage with her at events from Sapporo in the far north to Fukuoka in the south, including a Global Family Festival rally at the Tokyo Dome stadium that organizers hope will draw 50,000 people.
A spokesman for the federation said the group is an educational and charitable group that promotes women's and family rights. She said the group is separate from the Unification Church and that no money raised on Bush's tour will be used to support the church's extensive operations, which include the Washington Times newspaper.
Jean Becker, a spokeswoman traveling with Bush today in Vietnam, where he has begun a three-country Asian speaking tour that also includes China, said Bush is "unaware of any connection" between the federation and the Unification Church.
Masuo Oe, public relations manager for the Unification Church in Japan, said his group has a "friendly relationship" with the women's federation, but no formal business ties.
But legal and church groups in Tokyo that have condemned the South Korea-based Unification Church's fund-raising practices for years said the federation is merely a "front group" for the church. They have written to Bush urging him to cancel his plans because his fees would be "money which has been unlawfully appropriated from thousands of Unification Church victims."
In its letter to Bush, the United Church of Christ in Japan, a federation of 1,700 Protestant churches, said: "Please do not be fooled by its name but consider the group behind it and the damage that your association with it could cause to countless numbers of people."
Becker would not disclose Bush's fee, saying he considered it private. Chiyako Fukui, a federation spokeswoman, said her group's contract with Bush prohibited her from disclosing his fee. When former president Ronald Reagan came to Japan on an eight-day speaking tour in 1989, he was paid about $2 million by a large Japanese media company.
The finances of the Unification Church are complex, vast and a closely kept secret. A church spokesman in Seoul today said only Moon knows all the details of the church's business empire. But some who have studied the church say they believe it may have raised more money in Japan than in any other country.
Yoon Seung Yong, who monitored the church in the 1980s at South Korea's Culture Ministry and now teaches religion at Seoul National University, said money from Japanese operations provided at least 50 percent of the church's annual operating expenses through much of the 1980s.
In Japan, church members have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, particularly from the sale of pagoda statues, marble vases and other items that are reputed to have spiritual value. The Japanese Federation of Bar Associations in 1988 issued a report accusing the church of using unfair pressure tactics to sell such objects at extremely high prices. The report said church members, preying on people's religious anxieties, had bilked Japanese consumers out of at least $250 million between 1980 and 1987.
At a news conference today, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, leader of a group of 300 lawyers who have represented more than 16,000 people with claims against the church, said those practices have continued.
Yamaguchi's group cited numerous cases where church members allegedly bullied vulnerable people, particularly housewives and the elderly. In some cases they were told that because of an evil act committed by one of their ancestors, "your parents will die soon, your children will become sick, your husband will have an affair," the group said.
Often those people were told the only way to cure these ancient ills is to buy these "spiritual" products or to give a donation, it said.
In one recent court case filed by Yamaguchi's group, a widow claimed she was coerced into giving $50,000. She said she was told that her deceased husband was "suffering in Hell" and would continue to suffer until she donated her fortune.
Yamaguchi said that in recent years, Japanese courts have awarded more than $150 million in damages to people who sued the church.
Oe, of the Unification Church in Japan, said the church as an entity has not paid any court-ordered damages. He said, however, that some members individually have been sued and have paid money. Oe said the church has 467,000 members in Japan, and that some, on their own, may offer to sell small items to new members as a sign of friendship. But he said no church member ever applies pressure to sell such objects.
Oe also said the church engages in no for-profit business activities anywhere in the world: "Our organization is run only by the donations of the believers." He called the church's critics socialists and communists who spread false information about the church.
Becker said Bush has spoken at Women's Federation for World Peace events three or four times in Washington. She said he had been impressed by the quality of the other "prominent Americans" who also spoke to the group, including Coretta Scott King, television news personality Barbara Walters and Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.). Marilyn Quayle, wife of Bush's vice president, Dan Quayle, was listed as a speaker on the program of the federation's 1993 festival at the Tokyo Dome.
"This is a group that promotes bringing together women from the U.S. and Japan to promote greater understanding between the two countries," Becker said. "They seem to encourage the importance of family, peace and more understanding between the two countries."
"We were satisfied that there was not a connection with the Unification Church, and based on the information we were given we felt comfortable speaking to this group," Becker said. She said she was not aware of Bush's views on the Unification Church.
Becker said Bush was making two paid speeches in Vietnam, sponsored by Citibank, followed by several speaking engagements in China sponsored by IMC Global, an Illinois-based fertilizer company
#bush family#george bush#celebrity#politicians#presidents#george h.w. bush#sun myung moon#hak ja han#unification church in japan#japanese church#japan#politics#right-wing
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