G. Edward Griffin | |
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Born | George Edward Griffin November 7, 1931 |
Education | University of Michigan (BA) |
Occupation(s) | Author, filmmaker, lecturer |
Known for | Conspiracy theories |
Spouse | Patricia Irving Griffin |
George Edward Griffin (born November 7, 1931) is an American author, filmmaker, lecturer, and a conspiracy theorist. Griffin's writings promote a number of right-wing views and conspiracy theories regarding politics, defense and health care. In his book World Without Cancer, he argued in favor of a pseudo-scientific theory that asserted cancer to be a nutritional deficiency curable by consuming amygdalin. [1] [2] He is the author of The Creature from Jekyll Island (1994), [1] which advances debunked conspiracy theories [3] about the Federal Reserve System. He is an HIV/AIDS denialist, supports the 9/11 Truth movement, and supports the specific John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory that Oswald was not the assassin. [1] He also believes that the Biblical Noah's Ark is located at the Durupınar site in Turkey. [4]
Griffin was born in Detroit, Michigan, on November 7, 1931, and became a child voice actor on local radio from 1942 to 1947. He later emceed at WJR (CBS), and continued as an assistant announcer at the public radio station WUOM. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1953, majoring in speech and communications. In 1954, he served in the United States Army, and in 1956 was Honorably Discharged as a Sergeant. [5]
Griffin worked as a writer for Curtis LeMay, vice presidential running mate for George Wallace during his 1968 United States Presidential campaign. [5]
Griffin wrote and produced a number of documentary-style videos covering controversial topics similar in theme to his books. His films covered a wide range of topics including communism, espionage, the historical authenticity of Noah's Ark, the Federal Reserve System, the Supreme Court of the United States, terrorism, subversion, foreign policy, electronic voting fraud, cancer, and the chemtrail conspiracy theory.
Griffin created and ran a number of organizations that published a variety of print and audiovisual media, such as American Media [6] and Reality Zone, [7] in Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village, California. [6]
Many of Griffin's books and films were published by other organizations such as Robert Welch's American Opinion in Belmont, Massachusetts, and Western Islands in Boston. Griffin also produced printed works and films with Major General John K. Singlaub, publisher and national security journalist John H. Rees, and U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald at the Western Goals Foundation, a private domestic intelligence agency active in the United States beginning in 1979. [8]
Griffin presented his views on the U.S. money system and opposition to the Federal Reserve system in his 1993 movie and 1994 book, The Creature from Jekyll Island. [5] [a] In it, he presents his argument that the central banking system of the United States constitutes a banking cartel and an instrument of war and totalitarianism. [9] [11] The book was a business-topic bestseller, [12] [13] and influenced Ron Paul when he wrote a chapter on money and the Federal Reserve in his New York Times bestseller, The Revolution: A Manifesto . [14]
Edward Flaherty, an academic economist writing for Political Research Associates, characterized Griffin's description of the secret meeting on Jekyll Island as "amateurish" and "highly suspect". [15] Jesse Walker, the books editor for Reason magazine, says the book has grains of truth but "reduce[s] things too much to a certain narrative, where the mustache-twirlers are behind everything." [9] Peter Conti-Brown of The Wharton School and The Brookings Institution identifies the book as "the leading popular account of the conspiracists", noting that "while [they] hit their target in noting the existence and significance of the Jekyll Island meeting, [...] the 'creature' established [...] bore little relationship, from a governance standpoint, to the Federal Reserve System." In his words, the book should be referenced "for entertainment but not information". [16] In a movie review for The New York Times , Jeannette Catsoulis wrote that the book "has been debunked". [17]
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In 1964, Griffin wrote his first book, The Fearful Master, on the United Nations, a topic that recurs throughout his writings. While he describes his work as the output of "a plain vanilla researcher," Griffin also agrees with the Los Angeles Daily News 's characterization of him as "Crusader Rabbit". [18]
Griffin has been a member and officer of the John Birch Society (JBS) for much of his life [19] and a contributing editor to its magazine, The New American . [20] Since the 1960s, Griffin has spoken and written about the Society's theory of history involving "communist and capitalist conspiracies" over banking systems (including the Federal Reserve System), international banking, United States foreign policy, the U.S. military–industrial complex, the American news and entertainment media as propaganda, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the United Nations. [21] [22] From 1962 to 1975, he completed nine books and seven film productions; Griffin's 1969 video lecture, More Deadly Than War: The Communist Revolution in America, was printed in English and Dutch. In 1974, he published World Without Cancer, and in 1975, he wrote a sympathetic biography of JBS founder Robert W. Welch. [23] [24]
In May 2009, Griffin helped Robert L. Schulz and Edwin Vieira organize a meeting at Jekyll Island of thirty people which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, included tax protesters, militiamen, nativists, anti-Obama 'birthers,' libertarians, conspiracy-minded individuals with theories about FEMA death camps, and even an anti-Semite named Edgar Steele. [25] Speakers at the meeting "warned of 'increasing national instability,' worried about a coming 'New World Order', denounced schemes to merge Canada, Mexico and the United States, and attacked the new president's 'socialized' policies and failure to end illegal immigration", and attendees made plans for a "continental congress" that occurred in November 2009 that was hosted by the We the People Foundation. [25] Griffin was the first to speak at the Jekyll Island meeting and he "told conferees that merely putting 'large numbers of people in the street' was not enough. 'We must,' he said, 'achieve power.'" [25]
Griffin founded the Freedom Force International, host of an annual convention called "Red Pill Expo", beginning with the first event in Bozeman, Montana in 2017. According to Rachel Carroll Rivas, co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network, this event was "an 'alt-right' recruiting attempt." [26] Later he founded an organization titled Red Pilled University, which claimed to offer various courses and mentorship related to his popular conspiracy theories. [27]
In 1973, Griffin wrote and self-published the book World Without Cancer and released it as a video; [28] [29] its second edition appeared in 1997. In the book and the video, Griffin asserts that cancer is a metabolic disease like a vitamin deficiency facilitated by the insufficient dietary consumption of amygdalin. He contends that "eliminating cancer through a nondrug therapy has not been accepted because of the hidden economic and power agendas of those who dominate the medical establishment" [30] and he wrote, "at the very top of the world's economic and political pyramid of power there is a grouping of financial, political, and industrial interests that, by the very nature of their goals, are the natural enemies of the nutritional approaches to health." [31]
Since the 1970s, the use of laetrile (a semi-synthetic version of amygdalin) to treat cancer has been identified in the scientific literature as a canonical example of quackery and has never been shown to be effective in the treatment or prevention of cancer. [32] [33] [34] Emanuel Landau, then a Project Director for the APHA, wrote a book review for the American Journal of Public Health , which noted that Griffin "accepts the 'conspiracy' theory ... that policy-makers in the medical, pharmaceutical, research and fund-raising organizations deliberately or unconsciously strive not to prevent or cure cancer in order to perpetuate their functions". Landau concludes that although World Without Cancer "is an emotional plea for the unrestricted use of the Laetrile as an anti-tumor agent, the scientific evidence to justify such a policy does not appear within it." [35]
In 2010, Griffin engaged in HIV/AIDS denialism, claiming that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) "doesn't exist" and that antiretroviral medications (rather than HIV) cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). [1]
In a 2012 video titled "What in the World Are They Spraying?", Griffin asserts that airplanes leave a permanent grid of chemtrails hanging over cities like Los Angeles. [36]
In 1992, Griffin wrote and narrated The Discovery of Noah's Ark, based on David Fasold's 1988 book, The Ark of Noah. [4] Griffin's film said that the original Noah's Ark continued to exist in fossil form at the Durupınar site, about 17 miles (27 km) from Mount Ararat in Turkey, based on photographic, radar, and metal detector evidence. Griffin also said that towns in the area had names that resembled terms from the Biblical story of the Great Flood. He endorsed the historicity of the Biblical account of the flood, and speculated that the flood was the byproduct of massive tides caused by a gravitational interaction between Earth and a large celestial body coming close to it. [18]
Amygdalin is a naturally occurring chemical compound found in many plants, most notably in the seeds of apricots, bitter almonds, apples, peaches, cherries and plums, and in the roots of manioc.
The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, right-wing populist, and right-wing libertarian ideas. Originally based in Belmont, Massachusetts, the JBS is now headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, with local chapters throughout the United States. It owns American Opinion Publishing, Inc., which publishes the magazine The New American, and it is affiliated with an online school called FreedomProject Academy.
The chemtrail conspiracy theory is the erroneous belief that long-lasting condensation trails left in the sky by high-flying aircraft are actually "chemtrails" consisting of chemical or biological agents, sprayed for nefarious purposes undisclosed to the general public. Believers in this conspiracy theory say that while normal contrails dissipate relatively quickly, contrails that linger must contain additional substances. Those who subscribe to the theory speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be solar radiation management, weather modification, psychological manipulation, human population control, biological or chemical warfare, or testing of biological or chemical agents on a population, and that the trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.
The New World Order (NWO) is a term used in several conspiracy theories which hypothesize a secretly emerging totalitarian world government. The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian one-world government—which will replace sovereign nation-states—and an all-encompassing propaganda whose ideology hails the establishment of the New World Order as the culmination of history's progress. Many influential historical and contemporary figures have therefore been alleged to be part of a cabal that operates through many front organizations to orchestrate significant political and financial events, ranging from causing systemic crises to pushing through controversial policies, at both national and international levels, as steps in an ongoing plot to achieve world domination.
Lawrence Patton McDonald was an American physician, politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Democrat from 1975 until he was killed while a passenger on board Korean Air Lines Flight 007 when it was shot down by Soviet interceptors.
The Spotlight was a weekly newspaper in the United States, published in Washington, D.C. from September 1975 to July 2001 by the now-defunct antisemitic Liberty Lobby. The Spotlight ran articles and editorials professing a "populist and nationalist" political orientation. Some observers have described the publication as promoting a right-wing, or conservative, politics.
Carroll Quigley was an American historian and theorist of the evolution of civilizations. He is remembered for his teaching work as a professor at Georgetown University, and his seminal works, The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis, and Tragedy And Hope; A History Of The World In Our Time, in which he states that an Anglo-American banking elite have worked together for centuries to spread certain values globally.
Paul Moritz Warburg was a German-born American investment banker who served as the second vice chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1916 to 1918. Prior to his term as vice chairman, Warburg served as one of the original members of the Federal Reserve Board, taking office in 1914. He was an early advocate for the establishment of the US central bank system.
Robert Henry Winborne Welch Jr. was an American businessman, political organizer, and conspiracy theorist. He was wealthy following his retirement from the candy business and used his wealth to sponsor anti-communist causes. He co-founded the John Birch Society (JBS), an American right-wing political advocacy group, in 1958 and tightly controlled it until his death. He was highly controversial and criticized by liberals, as well as some conservatives, including William F. Buckley Jr. only after being an early donor to Buckley's National Review in the 1950s.
Ernst Theodore Krebs Jr. was an American promoter of various substances as alternative cures for cancer, including pangamic acid and amygdalin. He also co-patented the semi-synthetic chemical compound closely related to amygdalin called laetrile, which was also promoted as a cancer preventative and cure. His medical claims about these compounds are not supported by scientific evidence and are widely considered quackery.
Gary Michael Null is an American talk radio host and author who advocates pseudoscientific alternative medicine and produces a line of questionable dietary supplements.
David Franklin Fasold was a United States Merchant Marine officer and salvage expert who is best known for his 1988 book The Ark of Noah, chronicling his early expeditions to the Durupınar Noah's Ark site in eastern Turkey. Repudiating and then changing his views about the site, Fasold was a participant in a suit with Australian geologist and skeptic Ian Plimer against an Australian creationist group. The suit, dubbed the "Monkey Trial II," was a notable case in the debate between science and religion and its role in society.
The Jekyll Island Club was a private club on Jekyll Island, on Georgia's Atlantic coast. It was founded in 1886 when members of an incorporated hunting and recreational club purchased the island for $125,000 from John Eugene du Bignon. The original design of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, with its signature turret, was completed in January 1888. The club thrived through the early 20th century; its members came from many of the world's wealthiest families, most notably the Morgans, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts. The club closed at the end of the 1942 season due to complications from World War II.
Frederick Gary Allen was an American conservative writer. Allen promoted the notion that international banking and politics control domestic decisions, taking them out of elected officials' hands.
Centurius is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Debuting in 1968, he was Marvel's first black supervillain.
The Oasis of Hope Hospital is a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico providing alternative cancer treatments to its customers. The clinic was founded by the physician Ernesto Contreras. After his death in 2003, the management of the hospital was taken over by his son, Francisco Contreras, and nephew, Daniel Kennedy.
Big Pharma conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories that claim that pharmaceutical companies as a whole, especially big corporations, act in dangerously secretive and sinister ways that harm patients. This includes concealing effective treatments, perhaps even to the point of intentionally causing and/or worsening a wide range of diseases, in the pursuit of higher profits and/or other nefarious goals. The general public supposedly lives in a state of ignorance, according to such claims.
Ooops! Noah Is Gone... is a 2015 animated adventure comedy film directed by Toby Genkel and co-directed by Sean McCormack based on an idea by Ralph Christians about what happened to the creatures that missed Noah's Ark.
Maureen Kennedy Salaman was an American author, proponent of alternative medicine, and candidate of the American Independent Party for Vice President of the United States in the 1984 election.
Mick West is an American science writer, skeptical investigator, and retired video game programmer. He is the creator of the websites Contrail Science and Metabunk, and he investigates and debunks pseudoscientific claims and conspiracy theories such as chemtrails and UFOs. His first book is Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect (2018).
On his Fox News show, Glenn Beck presented Griffin as an authority on the history of the Federal Reserve System. Griffin has a history of holding and promoting various conspiracy hypotheses that include notions that question the very existence of HIV/AIDS, as well as the view that the origin of cancer has to do with a specific dietary deficiency, and correspondingly, that cancer can be effectively cured with an 'essential food compound'.
This program was written and narrated by G. Edward Griffin.
10. The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve: G. Edward Griffin. American Media. $24.50. ...
G. Edward Griffin lays out this conspiratorial version of history in his book The Creature from Jekyll Island. Mainstream-approved academics have viscerally criticized the very nature of his research as "highly suspect", his methods of research as "amateurish, and his controversial historical conclusions by referring to them as "utterly preposterous" however. ... ...
G. Edward Griffin, author and documentary film producer, calls himself 'a plain vanilla researcher and writer.' But the projects he has completed don't deal with 'vanilla' subjects. They concern the Federal Reserve, the Supreme Court, cancer and even Noah's ark. Perhaps a better description of Griffin is one he also admits to - 'Crusader Rabbit.' ...
At age 65, 90 percent of Americans are broke, author G. Edward Griffin writes. He's a contributing editor of The New American Magazine, published by the John Birch Society. The United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Bank are plotting a system of world military and financial control to destroy American sovereignty, he writes. The book warns about the dangers of the New World Order and preaches that the United States should get out of the United Nations....There's little that's accurate in Griffin's book, says journalist [David] Marchant.
In a wonderful lecture by G. Edward Griffin, slides and diagrams of triangles and arrows and circles show how the Conspiracy learned its techniques from the 18th Century Freemasons of Europe. ...
We invite you to learn more about him by reading The Life and Words of Robert Welch by G. Edward Griffin. ...
G. Edward Griffin, who helped organize the Jekyll Island gathering, may have been more revealing. Griffin, who wrote a scathing 1994 attack on the Fed published by the anti-communist John Birch Society and also a sympathetic biography of the group's founder, was the first to speak at the meeting.
The author maintains that the missing food nutrient is part of the nitriloside family which is found particularly in the seeds of the fruit family containing bitter almond ...
The filmmakers bring in advocate and conspiracist G. Edward Griffin to join this chemtrail crusade. He talks about how chemtrails don't dissipate; that a permanent grid hangs over cities like Los Angeles.