The New John Birch Society..the Tea Party. Great column by Tampa Bay Times Robyn Blumner.

[JDPriestly]

62. In the 1960s, my husband and I read a letter to the editor from a doctor's wife who was

a member of the John Birch Society. She was furious about fluoridation in our water. We were very, very young and wrote her a letter as a joke. If there is a file on my somewhere, that letter is probably in it. We wrote it as a joke because the thought the woman was so crazy that she could not be taken seriously. We showed sympathy with her but made fun of her.

The people who fell for the John Birch Society propaganda were sort of idiot savants. They included professionals and wealthy people, but their rants made no sense at all. The woman we wrote to was, if I recall correctly (it's been a long time), the wife of a doctor. She could not have been all that stupid, but she actually believed the John Birch propaganda. They were so extreme it was funny. There was no balance in their beliefs.

Reagan precursors. It's going to take us a long, long time and a lot of work to heal the wounds they inflicted on our country.