Thursday, November 12, 2009
I'm the Monster Here
By the time I was twenty-three I was clearly nuts. I was a magnet for the wrong men, every bit as damaged as I, men who wanted to manipulate and own me. I had not been loved as a child and had no idea how to love. Almost every man in my family had sexually abused me as a child. I trusted no one. I looked picture perfect but I was batshit crazy, coiled too tightly, barely able to breath. It was said of me I was high strung. That was an understatement. I worked every second to hold myself together, to appear calm and in control of myself, but I was an anxious mess. I was a monster. I aborted my only pregnancy. I knew I'd be a terrible mother. I had never been around a good mother.
I hated myself so profoundly I knew I carried a monster just like me, just like my mother, or worse, just like my father. I did not want to spend the rest of my life continuing that tradition or connected in any way to the man who impregnated me. He was delighted when I told him I was pregnant. But I was so furious at that moment because I also had to tell him he needed to get tested for a sexually transmitted disease. And in the end when we both knew that he hadn't given me syphilis, I still didn't want to have that profound connection with him.
One of the Indian women who worked in the sewing room at Satpurush asked me one day as we were all having lunch together, "Why don't you do what you're supposed to do? You're swimming against the current of your life." I was stunned by the question. I've been pondering that one all my life.
This isn't an excuse for my careless desperate foolish life, but I was emotionally damaged by it all. I was depressed and reclusive, living in a life that always seemed to put me in intimate contact with people I'd rather not have known. Nothing was planned or thought out. I was also bipolar. But if you believe in God then God has been testing me. Have I failed the test?
I don't believe in God. This in and of itself does not make me a monster. But it does let me see that the agenda of all Abrahamic religions is the subjugation of women. So this makes religious strictures completely political to me. And I set my jaw against it. I will not be chattel. I will not be dominated.
And in the end I might be liked; I do have friends. But it will be hard for a man to love me. I'll always need to live alone.
In many ways I am still my dreadful mother. I look like her, I sound like her, I have her taste in so many things and a such a bad track record with men. You probably wouldn't like me. I barely like myself.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
C Street "Family"
Rachel Maddow runs down the list for us of C-Street family members who also voted for Bart Stupak’s anti-abortion amendment yesterday. Nothing like having what amounts to a secretive religious cult making health care policy for women in the United States.
Now I want to know. Who are these men who plan to run the world and where are they planted in the government? I think this is one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard. A right wing religious and misogynistic cult is pulling the strings of governmental power. This amounts to a shadow government. And they don't have my interests in mind.
| Name | Position | Notoriety |
|---|---|---|
| Sam Brownback[1][80] | Sen. (R-KS) | Chair of Senate Values Action Team |
| James Inhofe[1][80] | Sen. (R-OK) | |
| Jim DeMint[1][80] | Sen. (R-SC) | Chairman of Steering Committee |
| Chuck Grassley[80] | Sen. (R-IA) | Former Chairman of Finance Committee |
| Richard Lugar[4] | Sen. (R-IN) | Former Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee |
| John Ensign[1][80] | Sen. (R-NV) | Involved in sex scandal |
| Tom Coburn[1][80] | Sen. (R-OK) | |
| Mark Pryor[1][80] | Sen. (D-AR) | |
| Bill Nelson[1][80] | Sen. (D-FL) | |
| John Thune[80] | Sen. (R-SD) | |
| Mike Enzi[80] | Sen. (R-WY) | |
| Joe Pitts[1][80] | Rep. (R-PA) | Chair of House Values Action Team; Member Committees on Energy & Commerce, Sec. & Coop in Europe |
| Todd Tiahrt[81] | Rep. (R-KS) | |
| Frank Wolf[24] | Rep. (R-VA) | Member of House Appropriations Panel[1] |
| Zach Wamp[1][24] | Rep. (R-TN) | |
| Mike McIntyre[24] | Rep.(D-NC) | |
| Bart Stupak[1] | Rep. (D-MI) | Author of the Stupak Amendment for the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" that would ban federal funding for abortions. |
| Michael F. Doyle[1] | Rep. (D-PA) | |
| Heath Shuler[1] | Rep.(D-NC) | |
| Jerry Moran[1] | Rep. (R-KA) |
[edit] Members currently serving as state governors
| Name | Position | Notoriety |
|---|---|---|
| Mark Sanford[68] | Gov. (R-SC) | Involved in sex scandal |
[edit] Current Family members formerly serving in the executive branch
| Name | Position | Notoriety |
|---|---|---|
| John Ashcroft[82] | Attorney General | AG under G.W. Bush; Also Sen. (R-MO), Member CNP |
| Dan Quayle[83] | Vice President | Also former Sen. (R-IN) |
| James Baker[4] | Secretary of State | Served under G.H.W. Bush |
| Robert "Bud" McFarlane[84] | National Security Adviser | Iran-Contra conspirator; served under Reagan |
| Ed Meese[85] | Attorney General | Served under Reagan; also Member CNP |
| Charles Colson[86] | Special Counsel | Watergate conspirator; served under Nixon |
| Melvin Laird[24] | Secretary of Defense | Persuaded Ford to Pardon Nixon[24] |
[edit] Current Family members formerly in the US Congress
| Name | Position | Notoriety |
|---|---|---|
| Don Nickles[33] | Sen. (R-OK) | Also Member Council for National Policy |
| Mark Hatfield[4] | Sen. (R-OR) | Chairman of Appropriations Committee |
| Pete Domenici[80] | Sen. (R-NM) | |
| Dan Coats[82] | Sen. (R-IN) | Promoted Faith-Based Initiatives |
| Chip Pickering[68] | Rep. (R-MS) | Involved in sex scandal |
| Tony P. Hall[87] | Rep. (D-OH) | Also UN ambassador for hunger issues under G.W. Bush |
[edit] Current Family members formerly in the US military
| Name | Rank | Notoriety |
|---|---|---|
| John W. Vessey[4] | Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff | |
| David C. Jones[88] | Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff | Also member Council on Foreign Relations |
[edit] Historical members
The following Family members are all deceased.
| Name | Position | Notoriety |
|---|---|---|
| Richard C. Halverson[1] | US Senate chaplain | "[O]ne of the first to join the Fellowship under found Abraham Vereide in the 1950s."[1] |
| Richard Nixon[84] | US President | Joined Family after presidency[84] |
| Gerald R. Ford[89] | US President | Pardoned Richard Nixon; also Member CFR |
| Strom Thurmond[24] | Sen. (R-SC) | opponent of civil rights |
| Herman Talmadge[24] | Sen. (D-GA) | opponent of civil rights |
| John C. Stennis[4] | Sen. (D-MS) | opponent of civil rights |
| Absalom Willis Robertson[24] | Sen. (D-VA) | Father of Pat Robertson |
| Arthur F. Burns[89] | Chief of Federal Reserve | Served under Nixon |
| Frank Carlson[90] | Sen. (R-KS) | Kingmaker for Eisenhower |
| Harold K. Johnson[91] | Gen., Chief of Staff of the Army |
[edit] Property holdings
The Family owns many properties.
[edit] Fellowship House
(133 C Street SE, Washington, DC. Three-story brick 7,914-square-foot (735.2 m2) rowhouse.)
Known as the "C Street Center" or "Fellowship House," this 1890 townhouse, located behind the Madison Annex of the Library of Congress and near the United States Capitol, has 12 bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five living rooms, four dining rooms, three offices, a kitchen, and a small "chapel".[14]
Rooms are rented to United States Senators and members of Congress who stay there as resident members of the Fellowship, reportedly paying $600 a month in room and board.[14][61]
The house is also the locale for:
- The Family's Wednesday prayer breakfasts for United States Senators, which has been attended by Senators Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, James Inhofe, John Ensign and Susan Collins
- A Tuesday night dinner for members of Congress and other Fellowship associates.
- An annual Ambassador Luncheon.[92] The 2006 event was attended by ambassadors from Turkey, Macedonia, Pakistan, Jordan, Algeria, Armenia, Egypt, Belarus, Mongolia, Latvia, and Moldova.
The property is exempt from real property taxes because it is classified as a "special purpose" use. District of Columbia law exempts from taxation "buildings belonging to religious corporations or societies primarily and regularly used for religious worship, study, training, and missionary activities" and "buildings belonging to organizations which are charged with the administration, coordination, or unification of activities, locally or otherwise, of institutions or organizations entitled to exemption."
Formerly used as a convent for nearby St. Peter's Catholic Church, 133 C Street was the headquarters of Ralph Nader's Congress Watch in the 1970s.[93] In 1980, the building was purchased by Youth with a Mission, Washington, D.C., Inc. (also known as Youth with a Mission National Christian Center, Inc.) YWAM took a note from Alexandro Palau in the principal amount of $448,873.33 to purchase the property. A 1981 modification of the note was signed by Fellowship member Ron Boehme in his capacity as President of YWAM, Washington, D.C. and witnessed by Michael Davidson as its secretary.
Asked about YWAM in 2009, Richard Carver, a retired Air Force general and the President of the Fellowship Foundation, told the Washington Post that his Fellowship group is affiliated with the house, but that he has never heard of Youth With a Mission of Washington, DC, and that he did not have a phone number for it. Carver later said that he had spoken with someone who "at one time was involved with the house" and had "heard secondhand" that the organization that runs the house is "subscribing to the no-comment."[61]
[edit] The Woodmont enclave
The Fellowship owns a number of properties, including the estate known as the Cedars (Doubleday Mansion) located at 2301 North Uhle Street (2145 24th Street North) in the Woodmont neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. This property, which was purchased by the Fellowship in 1978, includes two additional residences known as the "well house" and "carriage house," the latter of which is used by Doug Coe. The Cedars was determined to be a "place of worship" by the Zoning Administrator in 1976.[94]
Coe has described Cedars as a place "committed to the care of the underprivileged, even though it looks very wealthy." He noted that people might say, "Why don't you sell a chandelier and help poor people?" Answering his own question, Coe said, "The people who come here have tremendous influence over kids." Private Fellowship documents indicate that Cedars was purchased so that "people throughout the world who carry heavy responsibilities could meet in Washington to think together, plan together and pray together about personal and public problems and opportunities."[14] The Cedars hosts a prayer breakfast for foreign ambassadors on Tuesday morning.
In March 1990, YWAM (which also owns the C Street Center) purchased a nearby property located at 2200 24th Street North for $580,000.[95] The property, now known as Potomac Point, is used as a women's dormitory. Ownership of Potomac Point was transferred to the C Street Center on May 6, 1992, and again to the Fellowship Foundation on October 25, 2002. Potomac Point had been owned by Doug Coe's son, Timothy, who sold the property to his parents on November 30, 1989, for $580,000.
A second property, known as Ivanwald, located at 2224 24th Street North and assessed at $916,000, is used as a men's dormitory by the Fellowship. This property was purchased by Jerome A. Lewis and Co. in 1986, and sold to the Wilberforce Foundation in 1987. In 2007, the Wilberforce Foundation transferred Ivanwald to the Fellowship Foundation for $1 million. Jerome A. Lewis is a trustee emeritus of the Trinity Forum and the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Petro-Lewis Corporation.[96]
At one time, Doug Coe and his wife, Janice, owned nearby 2560 North 23rd Road, which they sold to Congressman Tony P. Hall (D-OH) and his wife on September 22, 1987, for $100,000.[97] Hall donated $20,000 to the Fellowship Foundation on September 4, 2002,[98], $1,500 to the Wilberforce Foundation,[99] and $1,000 to the Jonathan Coe Memorial of Annapolis, Maryland during the 2001 campaign cycle.[100]
The residence located at 2244 24th Street North, and assessed at $1,458,800, is owned by Merle Morgan, whose wife, Edita, is a director of the Fellowship.[101] It also is identified as the offices of the Fellowship Foundation and Morgan Bros. Corp. (d/b/a Capitol Publishing). Fellow Fellowship director and member Fred Heyn and his wife own 2206 24th Street North.
LeRoy Rooker, the one-time treasurer of the Fellowship and former Director of the Family Policy Compliance Office at the U.S. Department of Education, and his wife own 2222 24th Street North.[102]
Arthur Lindsley, a Senior Fellow at the C.S. Lewis Institute owns 2226 24th Street North.[103]
[edit] Cedar Point Farm
According to White House records dating from 1978, President Jimmy Carter traveled to Cedar Point Farm by Marine helicopter on November 12, 1978, to attend a Fellowship prayer and discussion group.[48] President Carter placed a call to Menachim Begin while at Cedar Point Farm.[48] The White House records reflect that Cedar Point Farm was owned by Harold Hughes, a former Senator from Iowa and the President of the Fellowship Foundation.[48] Cedar Point Farm was later used by the Wilberforce Foundation.
[edit] Other Family properties
- "Southeast White House", located at 2909 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, which is used by various community-based organizations.[104] This property is assessed at $736,310 for 2009 tax year.[105]
- "19th Street House," a two-story, brick apartment building located at 859 19th Street NE,[1] in the Trinidad neighborhood of northeast Washington, D.C., which is assessed at $358,250 for the 2009 tax year.[106] The 19th Street Center is used for afterschool activities.
- Mount Oak Estates, Annapolis, Maryland. One residential property, formerly owned by Timothy Coe, was sold to Wilberforce Foundation, Inc. for $1.1 million. A second residence is owned by David and Alden Coe and a third is owned by Fellowship associate Marty Sherman. Another nearby property, 1701 Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard, is owned by the Fellowship Foundation.
- Until 1994, the Fellowship operated from the "Fellowship House", a large estate located at 2817 Woodland Drive in Washington, D.C., which was sold to the Ourisman family for more than $2.5 million.