12 thoughts on “Sun Myung Moon, 1920-2012”

  2. OY!
    A very long story, for those interested enough to stick with me.

    In the fall of 1977, my 2nd year of college, and after the big hoo-haw about “All the President’s Men,” book AND movie, and investigative journalism, I decided to study that subject, hoping to find my career.
    So, while taking a course in journalism that fall, and after a couple of well-regarded articles by myself and other ‘newbies’ in that year’s crop on my college paper, we new “reporters” were tasked to go with “more veteran” college reporters to write articles about other, local, colleges around the area of the Mid-Hudson valley.

    When everyone grabbed all of the “cool” local colleges, like Vassar, and New Paltz, and Bard, along side the local CC’s, there was no one left to cover Rev. Moon’s new college, situated between the Rhinebeck/Red Hook, and Hudson, NY.

    So, guess which schmuck volunteered to go to Rev. Moon’s college – alone?
    This Sophomre cub reporter – ME!
    And no “veteran” college reporter wanted to touch this story with me.

    So, alone, I went!

    I made my arrangements with the school, calling and explaining the purpose of my visit – to write an investigative piece about their school.
    And they ACCEPTED!
    This was a school not known for being open – to say the least.
    My BS must have been very powerful that day!

    And so, the next morning I took off on my own – planning to stay overnight.

    When I got there, early in the morning, the Moon folks had me scheduled to talk to their professors.
    AND WHAT A COLLECTION THAT WAS!
    Teacher’s, Doctorates, from NYU, Yeshiva, Columbia, MIT, Fordham, and other major Northeast colleges.
    Jayzoos H. Keeeeeeerist, with a nice salary and benefits – what an All Star Team of intellectuals, I thought!
    But when I talked to them, most of them admitted teaching there for the money. The salary for ONE Professor, for ONE semester, which I found out, was far higher than any Professors at my college – for the entire YEAR!
    I asked the “Religious Studies” Professor, an old and highly respected man from Yeshiva, how he could teach at a college whose leadership, at least at that time, denied The Holocaust, and was anti-Semetic – except for the killing of the Jews to save the Christians part, of course. He looked at me, naive schmuck that I was, and said “I’m doing this for the money.”
    SHEEEEEEEEEE*T!!!!!!
    I was floored!
    “Life’s Lessons Learned,” might have been a play by Ol’ Will Shakespeare, had he lived long enough.
    And most of the highly respected All Star team of professors said the same thing – just not so bluntly.

    And then, I got the chance to meet the student body.
    It was like walking onto the set of the “Happy Days” show.

    Everyone was in neat, pressed and pleated chino’s, or blue-jeans (and don’t get me started on THAT!), an ironed collared shirt, white socks, and either Chuck Taylor sneakers, or loafers.

    I talked to many, many of them, asking the same question, which they were MORE than happy to answer – “How and why did you get involved in “The Unification Church?”
    And they all told pretty much the same story.
    To make a long story short, there was an older Englishman, probably in his early 40’s, who described it best to me.
    Read this, and try to do an English accent, “It was a dark and rainy night (yeah, I know- but it’s what he said), and I was leaving the pub, drunk and lonely, having broken up with me girlfriend, and suddently I was sorrounded by these happy, joyful people, who started talking to me. And I talked back to them. And, after awhile, I asked them why how they could be so happy in such miserable times, and they said, “Because of Rev. Moon, and his Unification Church.” And so, I kept going with them, listening to them, and finally decided, “Hey, what have I got to lose – let me try joining in with them!” And the rest is history, as they say, and here I am!”

    Like I said, this was pretty much the same story from everyone else.
    FYI – they had all pretty much taken a vow of poverty – hence the bobby-soxer look, at the height of the Punk/Disco/Hair-band, late 70’s.

    I was too busy talking to students to eat during their lunch period at their nice cafeteria, so I kept on plodding along, talking to students.

    And, after hearing the same story about lonely people, meeting other, “happier” people, I asked a few of them, “How do you reconcile yourselves to living a life in virtual poverty, when Rev. Moon and his family live in such opulance?”

    After I got the blinking stares, and a long pause, I heard the exact same thing from all of them – “Well,” they said, “he spent years in North Korean Concentration Camps, so he and his family deserve all of the blessings the Good Lord heaped upon them!”

    Asshole that I am, I turned to them and said, “Well, my parent’s, grandparents, and all of my relatives, though we’re not Jewish, spent time in HITLER’S Concentration Camps. Why don’t WE deserve to live in the same oppulance as the Moon’s?”
    Or, you?

    Needless to say, they had no answer for that.

    And, as it got to the dinner hour, and looking at these poor people caught-up in the religious con of some foreign, not even domestic, Christ-grifter, I decided against having dinner with them, and sleeping over.
    I, who had almost never been afraid, was terrified of what might be put in my food, and what happen during the middle of the night.

    I went to the Main Office, thanked the people who had allowed me access, and left, promising to send them a copy of my article.
    Needless to say, I’m sure when the received it, they weren’t pleased.
    Back in THAT day, they let us college student’s write whatever we wanted, and only WE, would suffer the consequences.

    And if I hadn’t learned the lesson BEFORE that day, I learned it then – ‘Beware of Geeks, believing grifts.’

    End of story.

    Now, don’t get me started on the story of the graft and corruption I uncovered in the building of the new athletic facility – it almost cost me the matching college grant on the more than generous NY State Regent’s Scholarship I’d earned – if not expulsion itself.

  4. Ya think panhandling is a rough business? Try doing it from the center lane of the Cross Bronx Expressway. Not easy! You need to have the reflexes that could qualify you for Wimbledon.

  5. I can’t provide a link right now, but CUNDgulag’s story rang some bells about how the moonies seduced new recruits. They had a technique called the “love bomb”. Vulnerable people were overcome by the promise of unconditional acceptance and respect. Often there was a hint of something more intimate. As you might imagine, this could be a very powerful strategy for dealing with young adults. From what I have read this approach was used generally toward anyone encountering the group.

    You may have slipped the siren’s song, CUNDgulag.

  7. OT – Does anyone know of any really good FREE anti-virus/spam/pop-up-blocker/little-internet-boogers-that’ll-kill-ya?

    Despite our bad economic situation, I got a new laptop a month ago, and my month of free, said, blockers/stoppers/slowers-downers is up today, and I didn’t think the one Cablevision, that repository of all the things I hate about corporate America – ESPECIALLY NEPOTISM! – did a good enough job.

    Any tips will be gladly appreciated.

  8. Beware of Geeks, believing grifts

    What a story! Gave me some powerful 70s flashbacks. To get into my high school entrance, we often had to run a gauntlet of Moonies, Children of God, or members of lesser cults. Sometimes kids just disappeared. One girl was kidnapped and “deprogrammed” by her parents. Oh, them days.

    I’m afraid I don’t know about free security ware… I got trapped by Norton and its automatic-renewal system thru a technological love-bomb of sorts. Excellent product, but pricey and corporately relentless.

  10. It will be interesting to see which Bush family members attend the funeral, since Moon has been one of the biggest benefactors of the Bush family for decades:

    http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/061406.html

    This man was one sick puppy, sexually and otherwise, and really was instrumental in building the right-wing media lie machine, with his control of The Washington Times.

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