Paul Rons
2008-03-16 17:16:34 UTC
Who Is Rev. Moon? 'Returning Lord,' 'Messiah,' Publisher of the Washington
Times
By John Gorenfeld, PoliPoint Press. Posted March 15, 2008.
"True Father" to some, madman to others, Sun Myung Moon is one of the
strangest and least scrutinized figures in the conservative media world.
The following is an adapted excerpt from John Gorenfeld's "Bad Moon Rising:
How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right,
and Built an American Kingdom" (Polipoint Press, 2008). The video at the
right is from a 1997 Washington Times party where Moon said he founded the
newspaper to save the world. In it, he also demands that his employees rid
the world of "free sex," meaning sexual intercourse beyond the purifying
influence of his mass weddings.
One chilly Tuesday evening, strange things were afoot on Capitol Hill. The
U.S. Senate was hosting a ceremony at the request of a wealthy, elderly
newspaper publisher who wanted official recognition as a majestic, divine
visitor to Washington. The Dirksen Senate Office Building made for an
unlikely temple: a formidable seven-story block of white marble, looming on
a street corner diagonally across from the Capitol Dome, its marble pediment
is inscribed, "THE SENATE IS THE LIVING SYMBOL OF OUR UNION OF STATES."
On March 23, 2004, U.S. lawmakers were filmed here in a conference room,
paying tribute to the enigmatic Reverend Sun Myung Moon, then eighty-four,
and his wife, Hak Ja, sixty-four.
As the cameras rolled, two congressmen presented the Koreans with matching
royal costumes. Wearing the burgundy robes and shining crowns, which crested
into jagged golden pinnacles, the married couple smiled and waved for the
cameras.
Who was this self-proclaimed monarch? In the 1970s, the evening news had
presented Moon, the ranting, middle-aged business tycoon who wore flowing
robes on special occasions, as Korea's answer to L. Ron Hubbard, someone for
college students to avoid, luring thousands of young Americans into a cult
in which they sold carnations on the street and married spouses he chose for
them. But the media had moved on to other nightmares, leaving Moon,
forgotten, to reinvent himself. Now time had wizened him into an elderly
patriarch, wearing an ashen face for his coronation. An orange Senate VIP
name tag remained pinned to his gray suit, peeking out from between rows of
curly gold filigree, as he stood on stage at the head of a red carpet.
The King of Peace, the Lord of the Fourth Israel, the Messiah, they called
him now -- and the publisher of the Washington Times. Though over a dozen
congressmen attended his pageant, no one spoke a word of it to the press,
not at first. By the time the secret was out, and ABC News was broadcasting
the strange sights, it was three months later -- summertime-and school was
coming soon to the States. Soon grand parade marshals would drive teen
queens and their bouquets around football fields, and the helmets of varsity
teams would crash through banners. And homecoming would not be so different,
insisted the two hapless congressmen, from the Reverend Moon's rites, which
had become a scandal.
"People crown kings and queens at homecoming parades all the time," the
liberal Chicago representative Danny Davis (D-IL) said.
"I remember the king and queen thing," said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD).
"But we have the king and queen of the prom, the king and queen of 4-H, the
Mardi Gras and all sorts of other things. I had no idea what he was king
of."
Yes, they admitted, it was them on camera, walking in the procession with
slow, worshipful steps, bowing to the stage where the Moons stood. Those
were Davis's hands, wearing white gloves to avoid defiling the embroidered
pillow he carried, a crown bobbing on it, to be lain on the brow of Mrs.
Moon; that was Bartlett carrying the burgundy cape for Mr. Moon's shoulders.
Neither seemed embarrassed.
The "throne room" itself belonged to the U.S. Senate, whose Rules Committee,
under Republican senator Trent Lott (R-MS), had the final say in who booked
rooms and whether visitors could be anointed kings in them. And a senator
had to sign off on that. The name of the senator, said one of the evening's
hosts, the defrocked Catholic priest George Stallings, was "shrouded in
mystery."
"There are moments that best play straight," CNN anchor Aaron Brown said
after I discovered the pageant. "So here goes. Lawmakers welcome a guy to
Congress -- and the messiah shows up."
* * *
The coronation had been disguised as a Washington awards dinner, sponsored
by a conservative, pro-war senator who had modestly kept his name out of the
picture. The party began normally enough, serving portions of chicken and
fish from the buffet and windy politicians' speeches from the podium. But
through a bait and switch -- and a strange internal logic -- room G-50 of
the Senate office building, all marble and eagle seals, changed during the
course of the evening into a fantasy throne room, complete with long red
carpet, for the stern monarch of the Washington Times, the influential
conservative newspaper that warns of immigrants and threats to Christmas --
and who also controls United Press International (UPI), the formerly great
news agency.
Moon walked from the chilly evening into the marble building dressed in a
suit with bow tie and rose corsage. When he got up to deliver his keynote
address, it was in a gravelly northern dialect of Korean, a farmer's accent.
Gripping the podium, he gruffly admonished the crowd, which included members
of Congress, to accept him as "God's ambassador, sent to earth with His full
authority."
Should we consider Rev. Moon for the next White House occupant? Remainder
of this here:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/79529/
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).
Times
By John Gorenfeld, PoliPoint Press. Posted March 15, 2008.
"True Father" to some, madman to others, Sun Myung Moon is one of the
strangest and least scrutinized figures in the conservative media world.
The following is an adapted excerpt from John Gorenfeld's "Bad Moon Rising:
How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right,
and Built an American Kingdom" (Polipoint Press, 2008). The video at the
right is from a 1997 Washington Times party where Moon said he founded the
newspaper to save the world. In it, he also demands that his employees rid
the world of "free sex," meaning sexual intercourse beyond the purifying
influence of his mass weddings.
One chilly Tuesday evening, strange things were afoot on Capitol Hill. The
U.S. Senate was hosting a ceremony at the request of a wealthy, elderly
newspaper publisher who wanted official recognition as a majestic, divine
visitor to Washington. The Dirksen Senate Office Building made for an
unlikely temple: a formidable seven-story block of white marble, looming on
a street corner diagonally across from the Capitol Dome, its marble pediment
is inscribed, "THE SENATE IS THE LIVING SYMBOL OF OUR UNION OF STATES."
On March 23, 2004, U.S. lawmakers were filmed here in a conference room,
paying tribute to the enigmatic Reverend Sun Myung Moon, then eighty-four,
and his wife, Hak Ja, sixty-four.
As the cameras rolled, two congressmen presented the Koreans with matching
royal costumes. Wearing the burgundy robes and shining crowns, which crested
into jagged golden pinnacles, the married couple smiled and waved for the
cameras.
Who was this self-proclaimed monarch? In the 1970s, the evening news had
presented Moon, the ranting, middle-aged business tycoon who wore flowing
robes on special occasions, as Korea's answer to L. Ron Hubbard, someone for
college students to avoid, luring thousands of young Americans into a cult
in which they sold carnations on the street and married spouses he chose for
them. But the media had moved on to other nightmares, leaving Moon,
forgotten, to reinvent himself. Now time had wizened him into an elderly
patriarch, wearing an ashen face for his coronation. An orange Senate VIP
name tag remained pinned to his gray suit, peeking out from between rows of
curly gold filigree, as he stood on stage at the head of a red carpet.
The King of Peace, the Lord of the Fourth Israel, the Messiah, they called
him now -- and the publisher of the Washington Times. Though over a dozen
congressmen attended his pageant, no one spoke a word of it to the press,
not at first. By the time the secret was out, and ABC News was broadcasting
the strange sights, it was three months later -- summertime-and school was
coming soon to the States. Soon grand parade marshals would drive teen
queens and their bouquets around football fields, and the helmets of varsity
teams would crash through banners. And homecoming would not be so different,
insisted the two hapless congressmen, from the Reverend Moon's rites, which
had become a scandal.
"People crown kings and queens at homecoming parades all the time," the
liberal Chicago representative Danny Davis (D-IL) said.
"I remember the king and queen thing," said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD).
"But we have the king and queen of the prom, the king and queen of 4-H, the
Mardi Gras and all sorts of other things. I had no idea what he was king
of."
Yes, they admitted, it was them on camera, walking in the procession with
slow, worshipful steps, bowing to the stage where the Moons stood. Those
were Davis's hands, wearing white gloves to avoid defiling the embroidered
pillow he carried, a crown bobbing on it, to be lain on the brow of Mrs.
Moon; that was Bartlett carrying the burgundy cape for Mr. Moon's shoulders.
Neither seemed embarrassed.
The "throne room" itself belonged to the U.S. Senate, whose Rules Committee,
under Republican senator Trent Lott (R-MS), had the final say in who booked
rooms and whether visitors could be anointed kings in them. And a senator
had to sign off on that. The name of the senator, said one of the evening's
hosts, the defrocked Catholic priest George Stallings, was "shrouded in
mystery."
"There are moments that best play straight," CNN anchor Aaron Brown said
after I discovered the pageant. "So here goes. Lawmakers welcome a guy to
Congress -- and the messiah shows up."
* * *
The coronation had been disguised as a Washington awards dinner, sponsored
by a conservative, pro-war senator who had modestly kept his name out of the
picture. The party began normally enough, serving portions of chicken and
fish from the buffet and windy politicians' speeches from the podium. But
through a bait and switch -- and a strange internal logic -- room G-50 of
the Senate office building, all marble and eagle seals, changed during the
course of the evening into a fantasy throne room, complete with long red
carpet, for the stern monarch of the Washington Times, the influential
conservative newspaper that warns of immigrants and threats to Christmas --
and who also controls United Press International (UPI), the formerly great
news agency.
Moon walked from the chilly evening into the marble building dressed in a
suit with bow tie and rose corsage. When he got up to deliver his keynote
address, it was in a gravelly northern dialect of Korean, a farmer's accent.
Gripping the podium, he gruffly admonished the crowd, which included members
of Congress, to accept him as "God's ambassador, sent to earth with His full
authority."
Should we consider Rev. Moon for the next White House occupant? Remainder
of this here:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/79529/
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).