Chasing Evil: Bad News

Famous for its inaccuracies, made up stories, extortion, neo-nazi, white supremacist staff members, and being owned by the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, the Washington Times has become the far right wing equivalent of the National Enquirer. It's reputation for racism, sexism, unprofessional conduct, lack of ethical standards, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-accurate articles are considered by the mainstream media to carry no credibility whatsoever, as they are often completely fabricated. Other tactics involve taking a story and selectively removing portions of it to slant it to the Times' agenda, which often comes down to nothing more than hate speech.

The Rev. Moon has admitted (bragged?) that he has spent more than three Billion dollars on the Times (maybe paying people to read it?). Despite this major influx of money, the Times ceased printing a hardcopy edition and now only maintains an Internet edition.

There is a dispute over who started the Times, the Rev. Moon claims to be its founder, yet the official records show Wesley Pruden started it.

From its earliest days the Times has been a hothouse for hard-line racialists and neo-Confederates. Wesley Pruden, who started at the paper in 1982, was their wizard. His father, the Rev. Wesley Pruden Sr., was a Baptist minister who served as chaplain to the Capital Citizens Council in Little Rock, Arkansas, the leading segregationist group in town. When President Dwight Eisenhower sent Army troops to protect nine black teenagers integrating Little Rock's Central High School in 1957, Pruden Sr. reportedly told an assembled mob, "That's what we've got to fight! Niggers, Communists and cops!"

Despite its very well known reputation for the above listed problems, it is often quoted by the worst of the hate mongers, such as Jihad Watch, townhall.com, Frontpage Mag, etc. Apparently, when fiction is needed to support stories from these well known bigots, they go to the Times. Occasionally, even the mainstream media will foolishly jump at a juicy scandal story from the Washington Times, only to later have to retract it. Most of the time, the MSM is smart enough to stay away from the Times.

Sun Myung Moon claims to have founded the Washington Times in 1982. He definitely financed it, but as to being the actual founder, the claim is questionable. Despite Moon's pouring millions of his own money into the publication, it has lost money every single year. Moon is perhaps the most controversial church figure in the world. Moon brought his Unification Church to America in 1971.

The Times is the flagship publication of News World Communications, Inc. (NWC). NWC was founded by Sun Myung Moon, and some of its officials are members of the Unification Church which he leads, a fact that has drawn some criticism and controversy. NWC published Insight Magazine and The World & I. Insight ceased hardcopy publication in 2004, moving to the web; and The World & I became The World & I Online, an educational magazine with four corresponding websites. NWC continues to publish the The Washington Times National Weekly Edition (a tabloid compilation, designed for subscribers outside the metropolitan area, of the previous week's published Washington Times stories). NWC also owns United Press International.

(Noting that Insight Magazine is a very well known Internet smear site, publishing stories about Congressman Barrack being a "secret Muslim" , and backing the anti-Muslim work of a known hate group (see article in this blog about SANE at SANE or Insane?).

NWC is described by the Columbia Journalism Review as "the media arm of Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church".

In 1982 Moon was convicted by the U.S. government for filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy. His conviction was upheld on appeal in a split decision. He was given a prison sentence and spent 13 months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. Many individuals, organizations and religious figures protested the charges, saying that they were unjust and threatened freedom of religion and free speech. (noting that filing false tax returns is not even remotely considered freedom of speech, it's a crime.)

In 1981 Moon proposed an international highway project that would reach around most of the world. He said about it:

"It would mean that people would come and go freely without borders. It would have no national boundaries. ... No matter what color skin you have, nothing can stop you there. There will be absolutely no racial discrimination."

Ahem. One word - "Oceans."

In Washington, Moon found common ground with strongly anti-Communist leaders of the 1980s who appreciated Moon's opposition to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and other communist nations and his support of President Richard Nixon. He found a fellow opponent of Communism in President Ronald Reagan and Moon spent a billion dollars during the next 20 years, most of it in the Washington D. C. area, to establish and support the influential conservative newspaper The Washington Times, which he called in 2002, 'the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world'.

Fundraising scandal and lawsuit in Japan

In the 1990s, thousands of Japanese elderly people successfully claimed to have been defrauded of their life savings by Moon followers' spiritual sales. Moon's church was the subject of the largest consumer fraud investigation in Japan's history in 1997 and court decisions upheld a 37.6 million yen ($300,000) decision to pay two women coerced into donating their assets to the Unification Church.

Campaign to replace the Cross with a Crown

That same year Moon began his "tear down", or "take down the cross" campaign. The campaign was begun in the belief that the cross is a reminder of Jesus' pain and has been a source of division between people of different faiths. The campaign included a "burial" ceremony for the cross and a crown to be put in its place.

The Rick Ross website reported: "According to a prominent Unification Church official, dozens of ministers across the country associated with the group have heeded Moon's call to take down the cross from their churches and replace it with the crown."

With Enough Money...

On 23 March 2004, at a congressional Ambassadors for Peace reception where more than 12 United States lawmakers were in attendance, Rev. Sun Myung Moon was crowned in what both church members and media commentators have called a 'coronation ceremony.'
On June 23, 2004 the Washington Post reported:

At the March 23,2004 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) wore white gloves and carried a pillow holding an ornate crown that was placed on Moon's head. The Korean-born businessman and religious leader then delivered a long speech saying he was "sent to Earth . . . to save the world's six billion people. . . . Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."
At this ceremony, Moon announced that he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of even Hitler and Stalin. Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin were among those who vouched for him from the spirit world. (Quick Quiz: Who's more insane, Moon or the members of Congress who crowned him?)

Hypocrisy?

Moon is a huge, worldwide promoter of world peace. This is the primary theme of almost all his speeches and preachings. However:

Church members worked in munitions manufacturing in South Korea during the 1960s, as documented in a U.S. Congressional Report on the Unification Church from 1978. According to the same report, "A Moon Organization business" was involved in weapons manufacture and "is an important defense contractor in Korea. It is involved in the production of M-16 rifles, antiaircraft guns, and other weapons.". The report also said that "[o]f particular concern is the Moon Organization’s involvement in the production and sale of M-16 rifles and other weapons provided to Korea under U.S. aid programs and subject to the Arms Export Control Act. In late 1977, Moon Organization representatives tried to renegotiate a coproduction agreement between Colt Industries and the ROK Government. The circumstances suggested they were secret envoys of the Korean Government which, under the coproduction agreement, has exclusive control over M-16 production. Although the ROK Government said it wanted to produce 300,000 extra M-16’s because of the need to equip its own forces, Moon Organization tried to get Colt’s agreement to export guns to third countries."

Moon's fourth son, Kook Jin "Justin" Moon founded Kahr Arms, a small-arms company based in Blauvelt, New York with a factory in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Some commentators, including American independent journalist Robert Parry, have said that Moon, although he has never run for political office, has an extensive history of making political donations through the various organizations such as the Women’s Federation for World Peace and the Washington Times Foundation, with his money flowing through the religious right in particular. In the mid-1990s former United States President George H.W. Bush accepted millions of dollars from Moon's Women’s Federation for World Peace to speak on his behalf around the world, a fact that Moon touted to his advantage in his media outlets. In June 2006 the Houston Chronicle reported that in 2004 Moon’s Washington Times Foundation gave $1 million to the Greater Houston Community Foundation, which made donations to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. A man described as a "Virginia electronic gumshoe named Larry Zilliox" by reporter Rick Casey suggested that this was to lobby Bush's son President George W. Bush for a pardon for Moon's 1982 felony tax conviction.

Moon has been criticized for his condemnation of homosexuality

http://www.unification.net/1997/970504.html

and for his anti-Semitism:

In a 1976 statement published as a full-page advertisement in major newspapers, Sun Myung Moon said,

The Unification Movement categorically condemns anti-Semitism, the most hideous, abject and cruel form of hatred. We regard the murder of six million Jews in Europe the result of political short-sightedness and lack of moral responsibility on the part of Germany's political and religious leaders, and [others who] acted too late to block Hitler's ascent to power, postponed the action for his downfall, and did nothing to rescue the victims who were the captives of his satanic plans and designs.

Yet he has also made several statements that appear, to some people, to blame the Jews along with the Roman government. For example,

To recreate Israel, the church and the state must become one as Cain and Abel.
Instead they became one with Rome and captured and killed Jesus. They united
with Rome. Who are the Jewish members here, raise your hands! Jewish people, you have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity Hitler killed 6 million Jews. That is why. God could not prevent Satan from doing that because Israel killed the True Parents. Even now, you have to determine that you will repent and follow and become one with Christianity through Rev. Moon. (speech to members, March 2, 2003)