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THE NEW AMERICAN -- December 12, 1994
Copyright 1994 -- American Opinion Publishing, Incorporated
P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI  54913

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ARTICLE: Front Page Sidebar
TITLE: "New Age Newt: A Futurist 'Conservative' for the 21st Century"
AUTHOR: William F. Jasper

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In a post-election address to the Washington Research Group on 
November 11, 1994, Representative Newt Gingrich chided the 
Washington press corps' propensity for stereotyping politicians 
and offered this description of himself:

The best description of me is that I'm a conservative futurist. 
Marianne [Gingrich's second wife] and I have for a long time been 
friends of Alvin and Heidi Toffler, the authors of Future Shock 
and The Third Wave. We really believe it's useful to think about 
the 21st century....

Moreover, Gingrich recommended "to all congressional staffs" that 
they read "the new Progress and Freedoms Foundation report on Alvin 
Toffler's works."

The tight Gingrich-Toffler connection spanning three decades has 
received little attention in the major media, but consideration of 
it is essential to an understanding of Mr. Gingrich's strange new 
brand of "conservatism." In April 1975, Gingrich and Toffler joined 
with some 50 other liberal-left activists of the Ad Hoc Committee 
on Anticipatory Democracy in signing a letter to Congress urging 
more congressional interest in planning for the future and implementing 
a "futurist" agenda. Fellow signatories included Betty Friedan, Lester 
Brown, Margaret Mead, Jonas Salk, Elise Boulding, R. Buckminster Fuller, 
Willis Harman, Robert Theobald, and Amitai Etzioni (Bill Clinton's guru 
of "Communitarianism").

In 1978, Toffler wrote the introduction for Anticipatory Democracy, 
a collaborative effort by 20 New Left and New Age authors, including 
Newt Gingrich, whose chapter, "The Goals for Georgia Program," was a 
glowing endorsement of Governor Jimmy Carter's socialist "planning" 
agenda! Among the radical left, occult, globalist, enviro-extremist, 
humanist, and New Age organizations the book promoted as "citizen 
groups on the cutting edge of alternative futures" were ACORN, Center 
for Science in the Public Interest, Earthrise, Environmental Action, 
Findhorn Community, Lindisfarne Association, Worldwatch Institute, 
Public Citizen, Spark, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Conference 
on Alternative State and Local Public Policies. The book throughout 
extolled the virtues of "participatory democracy," a revolutionary 
slogan dear to the likes of Tom Hayden, Derek Shearer, and Bill Clinton, 
and one drawn directly from the eighth plank of the Humanist Manifesto II 
(1973).

One of Gingrich's Anticipatory Democracy co-authors was Representative 
Charlie Rose, ultra-liberal Democrat from North Carolina, who has a 
cumulative rating of seven percent on The New American's Conservative 
Index, lower even than admitted Socialist Congressman Bernie Sanders 
(16 percent). Rose's chapter is entitled "Building a Futures Network 
in Congress." In 1976, together with a bevy of leftwing Democratic 
members of Congress, Rose formed the Congressional Clearinghouse on the 
Future, which Gingrich joined upon his election to Congress. In fact, 
Newt became a member of the executive committee, providing the critical 
Republican and "conservative" cover the group needed to camouflage its 
obvious leftist agenda. One of Newt's Clearinghouse comrades was Senator 
Al Gore, whose pathetic eco-diatribe, Earth in the Balance, although the 
butt of conservative jokes, closely fits the Toffler-Gingrich "futurist" 
world view. Leading Edge, an influential New Age newsletter, reported on 
October 17, 1983 that Congressmen Gingrich and Gore introduced a bill to 
advise the President on "critical trends and alternative futures."

The February 27, 1984 issue of New Options, a publication edited by 
leading New Age "philosopher" Mark Satin, identified Gingrich as a top 
"decentralist/globally responsible" congressman, a revealing kudo.

Mark Satin is also the author of New Age Politics (1978), a guide to New 
Age political thought. In that guide Satin calls for planetary governance, 
"a system of world taxation (on resource use)," "an increased transfer of 
wealth from rich to poor countries," and "complete military disarmament." 
What's more, he has it in for the nuclear family, traditional marriage, 
and heterosexual society: "The nuclear family can be devastating to 
parents and children alike," and "it tends to embody the first four sides 
of the Prison in almost pure form"; "Compulsive heterosexuality cuts us 
off from half the world as love partners"; "Compulsive monogamy may have 
served some essential purpose two or three million years ago," but today 
it tends toward "a more or less monotonous day-to-day living together."

In all these radical positions Satin is in tune with Toffler, whose books 
he admiringly quotes and recommends. Toffler, the intellectual darling of 
the "counter culture" and the "liberal media" that Gingrich loves to attack, 
has for three decades been the leading "prophet" of social revolution and 
"transformation." Even more than for his socialist/redistributionist 
political and economic views, Toffler has been the bane of all true 
conservatives committed to preserving Judeo-Christian culture for his 
avid championing of group marriage, polygamy, serial marriage, homosexual 
marriage, the "liberating" effect of divorce, and child rearing by 
"professional parents."

On October 3, 1990, Gingrich and Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) sent 
a "Dear Colleague" letter inviting all members of Congress and staff members 
"to join us at a reception honoring best-selling author Alvin Toffler on 
the eve of publication of his new Bantam book Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth 
and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century."

"Alvin Toffler's seminal works, Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave 
(1980), each helped to define its decade, add new words to the language, 
and significantly alter the way we think about change," Markey and Gingrich 
wrote. "His new book promises to shake up our vision of the future once 
again," they enthused, stating further that "Toffler's ideas will likely 
become an important resource in focusing national debate on the challenges 
facing our nation in the post-Cold War era."

Like Charlie Rose, Markey is an odd ally for "conservative" Gingrich. 
Markey has a cumulative five percent rating on our Conservative Index. 
But those are the kinds of folks Newt runs with at the Congressional 
Clearinghouse on the Future, where he helps move our lawmakers leftward 
by bringing them speakers such as Toffler, Mikhail Gorbachev, Carl Sagan, 
Marian Wright Edelman, Lou Harris, Ellen Goodman, Daniel Yankelovich, and 
John Jacob.

END OF ARTICLE

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THE NEW AMERICAN -- December 12, 1994
Copyright 1994 -- American Opinion Publishing, Incorporated
P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI  54913

SUBSCRIPTIONS: $39.00/year (26 issues)

ATTENTION SYSOPS: Permission to repost articles from 
The New American may be obtained from the above address.

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