The Central Issue
On February 3, 2006 I posted on this website a five-page “response” from employees at the JBS home office to my mailing a few weeks earlier. It was signed by 19 members of the office staff at “770” Westhill Blvd. in Appleton. Its author, however, chose to remain anonymous, so I will refer to it as the “JBS Union Local 770” letter, or “Local 770” letter for short.
The “Local 770” letter starts off its reply to my letter by snidely suggesting that I may not be its real author. But it can’t be disputed that I am identified as such and have signed it. By contrast, the idea that a committee of employees – including secretaries and some who are not even JBS members – came together to write the “Local 770” letter is ludicrous. Clearly, it was written by someone (see below) with a lot of anger and little commitment to what Mr. Welch had so carefully and laboriously given us.
The “Local 770” letter, together with a 20th signature, has also been sent to the JBS Council and to some of those JBS members who received my January 10 mailing. Obviously, it was sent to explain and justify the October 21 takeover of the organization. The “Local 770” letter is so full of errors and nonsense that I did not hesitate to post it on my website as an example of the trouble that can come when people think they are smarter than Robert Welch.
The fact that the “Local 770” letter was written at all should send up a red flag. It is strictly contrary to the monolithic design of the JBS for the tail to wag the dog. That is what union organizers do, they socialize their demands, itemize their grievances and make the employees think they can set policy or can walk out if they don’t get what they want, or don’t like who runs the company. The “Local 770” letter – if we take it at face value – is a perfect example of democracy at work – or should I say at play? Well, the employees in Appleton had 14 years to “vote with their feet” under the “terrible” leadership of Vance Smith and Tom Gow, but I know of very few who did. The JBS is a nice place to work and the pay is good. For some who signed the letter, it is the best job and highest pay they have ever had. No, they are not going to resign if they don’t like their next leader. Playing the union game, for right now, however, beats anything going on at Lambeau Field.
The John Birch Society was organized to fight a very powerful Conspiracy that threatens America’s survival as a free and independent Republic. The authors of the October 2005 coup have done incredible damage to the structure that Mr. Welch put in place to fight that Conspiracy. That is the real central issue, not alleged employee morale problems.
On the first page of the “Local 770” letter, readers are greeted by the claim that I failed to address the “central matter.” Yet the “Local 770” letter doesn’t even identify that central matter for the reader until two pages later. Finally, we are informed that lack of Executive Committee oversight, which allowed a tyrannical CEO to destroy their morale, is the central matter: “This is the main issue we wish to address.”
Most of the employees in Appleton are my friends. They are good people, but they are not the John Birch Society. The JBS is not a building on Westhill Blvd. It is a body of highly dedicated citizens organized in chapters all over the United States. My friends in the Appleton office are paid to help our members save our country. But even the volunteer members, who are the real workforce for freedom, do not decide who runs the JBS. The 19 signatures on the “Local 770” letter exemplify the ignorance (or worse) of those who have misled them.
In many cases, I suspect, those signing the letter were pressured to do so by Alan Scholl – the first signature on the letter. While at RWU, Alan had been given administrative leave because during the critical period of the launch of its online degree program, he had shifted his focus to convincing RWU employees that they should threaten to resign if Mr. Smith were not replaced. Most of those RWU employees, I am informed, had little desire to get involved in this JBS dispute. But they were under repeated pressure from Alan to join his crusade. I am particularly impressed by those employees at both organizations who did not sign or write letters and resisted this leftist strategy for creating the appearance of a mass movement.
As the letter later acknowledges, apparently to entice reluctant employees to sign it, “Some of us were in the dark as to the various details of the events leading up to Mr. Smith’s removal ....” An understatement. The coup was orchestrated largely outside the home office. Even Jack McManus only climbed on board toward the end when the coup was well underway.
In addition to missing the central issue of corporate control, the letter includes a number of specific challenges and errors, which I address in an attachment to this letter. (On the website I have keyed my comments to specific paragraphs in the “Local 770” letter.)
We have just seen a JBS con-con
What has happened in the Birch Society is similar to a constitutional convention (con-con). There is nothing illegal about a con-con; it is provided for in the Constitution. Likewise, there is nothing illegal about the power of the JBS Board of Incorporators. That authority is mandated by the State of Massachusetts and is spelled out in the by-laws for the corporation.
Why do we work so hard to prevent a con-con even though it is legal? Because it would open the door to our enemies who could weaken or destroy the Constitution. Likewise, why do I (and others) oppose the October 21 action of the Board of Incorporators? Because they have effectively held a con-con, opening the door to our enemies who could weaken or destroy the John Birch Society. The action of the Incorporators has converted the monolithic structure of the JBS into a democratic process for selecting its officers.
In their effort to unseat the former leadership, a few individuals spent the summer and fall of 2005 fomenting discontent among the field staff and certain members of the Council. Some of them were on speaking tours and spread the ill will among our speaker chairmen and chapter leaders in all parts of the country. Meanwhile, some of our coordinators had been under pressure because of poor performance, so it was not hard to rile them up against Vance Smith, who is, yes, a very demanding leader.
The dissenters played on this unrest with great fervor and persistence. At least one of our Council members was among them. He told me he spent many hours on the phone trying to create a majority in support of dumping the CEO. I have to believe this man did not realize he had employed an old communist tactic of creating the semblance of a spontaneous uprising. However, more cool heads on the Executive Committee were not buying into it; these are the men who had put millions of dollars into the JBS, and they know how to read a balance sheet, assess competence, and discern loyalty.
What has been lost?
Despite the legal authority of the Board of Incorporators to choose the Society’s leader, Mr. Welch made it very clear that this was to be the function of the Executive Committee, with the approval of the Council. And every leadership change, until the last one, was conducted on Executive Committee recommendation, as Mr. Welch intended. He had good reasons for entrusting these Americanists with such authority – not only did he want the financial support and influence of these men; he wanted the experience and counsel of these highly successful individuals.
Instead, an uprising orchestrated by a few attacked the structure of control while billing their campaign as merely an effort to oust Vance Smith. They attacked, as does the “Local 770” letter, the Executive Committee as being a rubber stamp for Vance Smith. This ignorant speculation is an insult to the many dedicated men who served on this body during Vance Smith’s term as CEO, men such as Thomas N. Hill (Mr. Welch’s right hand man for 25 years), Joseph P. Grinnan, Dr. Philip E. Binzel, Jr., and even the Hon. Clyde R. Lewis, in addition to Wayne C. Rickert, C. Walter Ruckel, and Keith VanBuskirk, only VanBuskirk was appointed to that body by Vance Smith (Thomas Hill, who had never left the Council, was reappointed to the Executive Committee by Vance Smith).
At the conclusion of this unwarranted attack, two employees on the JBS Board of Incorporators, supported by a former employee, effectively appointed themselves as the Society’s leaders. But in reality this “emergency action” went far beyond replacing the Society’s leader. It removed any oversight by anyone. The new leaders are unaccountable and the authority of the Executive Committee developed and nurtured by Mr. Welch has been eliminated for the foreseeable future. If the new leaders prove incompetent who can force them to step down? No one.
This coup is akin to the takeover in George Orwell’s novel “Animal Farm” in which the animals ousted farmer Jones and took control. The results for JBS will, I predict if uncorrected, be similarly disastrous.
The dissenters try to portray this as a turf war, a vain effort by poor losers to get back their control of the JBS. While I think Vance Smith and Tom Gow are far more competent than those now in office, my purpose is not to reinstate them. I am not running a campaign for them; I am trying to prevent the destruction of the John Birch Society. This is not an overstatement. We are in deep trouble and every member needs to understand this. Just take a look at the last three JBS Bulletins (Dec., Jan., and Feb.), and you be the judge. Except for the articles of Warren Mass (who also expressed alarm over recent events at headquarters), you are getting a skimpy dose of drivel laced with half-truths and misleading statements. Does anyone see this as leadership?
While there is no evidence to my knowledge that the enemy is behind these events, he could not have done a better job by design than we are doing to ourselves by blunder, ambition, ignorance, and ego. The effect is the same – disaster for the John Birch Society’s leadership in the freedom fight.
Don Fotheringham
P.S. Please see my recently posted comments to specific claims in the “Local 770” letter.
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