The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a constitutional republic and personal freedom. It has been called "ultraconservative".
Founder Robert W. Welch Jr. (1899–1985) developed an elaborate organizational infrastructure in 1958 that enabled him to keep a very tight rein on the chapters. Originally based in Belmont, Massachusetts, it is now headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, with local chapters in all 50 states. The organization owns American Opinion Publishing, which publishes the journal The New American.
Read more about John Birch Society: Values, Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words birch and/or society:
“The birch stripped of its bark, or the charred stump where a tree has been burned down to be made into a canoe,—these are the only traces of man, a fabulous wild man to us. On either side, the primeval forest stretches away uninterrupted to Canada, or to the “South Sea”; to the white man a drear and howling wilderness, but to the Indian a home, adapted to his nature, and cheerful as the smile of the Great Spirit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man’s subordination.... The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence—that, is, the individual—pure and strong.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)