Liberty Lobby

{{Conspiracynav|1}}{{hatnote|If you're confused by the lack of plastic flowers, perhaps you were looking for [[Hobby Lobby]] instead?}}
'''Liberty Lobby''' was a right-wing [[United States|U.S.]] group founded c. 1955 by [[Willis Carto]], a [[neo-Nazi]], and defunct as of 2001 due to a lawsuit brought against them by the [[Holocaust denial]] group, the [[Institute for Historical Review]] (also founded by Willis Carto).  Liberty Lobby promoted "controversial issues" (namely, a highly [[Antisemitism|anti-Semitic]] worldview which they framed as [[populism|populist]] and anti-[[Zionism|Zionist]]) which other [[conspiracy theory|conspiracist]] right wing groups such as the [[John Birch Society]] disavowed.

Despite their name and office near Capitol Hill in [[Washington, D.C.]] they did little, if any, actual lobbying.  They possibly played a role in [[Lyndon LaRouche]]'s abandonment of [[Marxism]] when Liberty Lobby began promoting LaRouche writings to their right-wing audience starting in 1976.

==''Report from Iron Mountain'' controversy==

In 1990, they reprinted Leonard C. Lewin's 1967 political satire ''[[Report from Iron Mountain]]: On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace'', written in the form of a government panel report detailing that war is necessary to maintain power, convinced it was an actual government report and that it was in public domain. Lewin successfully sued for copyright infringement in court, proving he was the book's author.<ref name="kifner">John Kifner.  "[http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/30/us/l-c-lewin-writer-of-satire-of-government-plot-dies-at-82.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm L. C. Lewin, Writer of Satire Of Government Plot, Dies at 82]."  ''New York Times''.  1999 January 30</ref> This hasn't stopped the "true believers" who insist the book is real and Lewin was a patsy, posing as the book's author in order to discredit it.<ref>http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/veon.htm</ref>

==The ''[[Weekly World News]]'' of the Right==

Their biggest influence came about because of their weekly newspaper, ''The Spotlight'', which ran from 1975-2001. The paper was a notable source of several fringe topics, including:

* [[New World Order]] and [[John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory|John F. Kennedy assassination]] [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]],<ref group=note>Mark Lane, one of the early JFK assassination conspiracy theorists and author of the best-seller ''Rush to Judgment'' on the topic in the early 1960s, eventually became Liberty Lobby's in-house lawyer; Lane came from a leftist background and his eventual involvement with Liberty Lobby (as well as Liberty Lobby's promotion of Lyndon LaRouche) is an example of something that sets Liberty Lobby apart from most hard-right groups: they sometimes attempted to form alliances with the far left.  Further examples [http://www.publiceye.org/rightwoo/rwooz9-09.html#P212_78191 here].</ref>
* promotion of [[alternative medicine|alternative health remedies]], including [[colloidal silver]], [[Laetrile]], [[shark cartilage]] and [[chelation therapy]],
* [[Antisemitism|anti-Semitic]] reporting on Middle East affairs,
* favorable reporting on fringe presidential candidates ignored by the "controlled" media, such as [[David Duke]] and [[Lyndon LaRouche]],
* history pieces on [[World War II]] arguing that the [[Axis]] was really just a coalition against [[communism]],
* articles defending [[Scientology]] against its critics,<ref group=note>Liberty Lobby suddenly turned anti-Scientology very late in the game after Mark Weber, a Scientologist and Carto rival, took control of the Institute for Historical Review from Liberty Lobby's Willis Carto.</ref>
* and reporting on the [[Bilderberg Group]] and the [[Trilateral Commission]].
They also took a special interest in investigative reporting on political and corporate scandals involving [[Zionism|Zionists]].

The talk radio show "Radio Free America" during the 1990s, hosted by Tom Valentine and heard over [[WWCR]], was sponsored by ''The Spotlight''.

==''American Free Press''==
The weekly ''American Free Press'' is a successor newspaper to ''The Spotlight'', founded in 2001 by former staffers. It is a significant source of [[9/11 conspiracy theories]], and is cited as a source by the 9/11 conspiracy film ''[[Loose Change]]''.

==The one real service it actually did==
In 1981, an investigative-journalism magazine published a series of articles on Liberty Lobby, portraying them to be the nutjobs they were, and throwing in some [[Godwin's Law|accusations of Nazism]] for good measure. Liberty Lobby sued them, and long story short it ended up in the Supreme Court and now ''{{wpl|Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.}}'' is ''the'' single most-cited case in American jurisprudence (as it sets out the standard for {{wpl|summary judgment||,}} and every single American federal court ''must'' recite the rule it states in every case where summary judgment is sought, i.e. every single civil lawsuit in federal court that isn't decided on a motion to dismiss).

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120922164802/http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/liblobby.html Profile of the Liberty Lobby] (archived from the original)
==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Antisemitism]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theorists]]
[[Category:LaRouche movement]]
[[Category:Misnomers]]
[[Category:Neo-Nazism]]
[[Category:Paleoconservatism]]
[[Category:United States politics]]

Categories: Antisemitism, Conspiracy theorists, LaRouche movement, Misnomers, Neo-Nazism, Paleoconservatism, United States politics