Those working for the corporations, the NeoCons and their friends, needed to ensure beginning in the 50s with the Goldwater Movement that the Republican Party was converted from an organization reawakened to the reality of freedom and individual rights to something they could control. They needed to quench and direct the spirit that had been fostered in that generation of activists through the merging of the Objectivist Movement and the Goldwater Revolution, so they would accept the rhetoric of freedom as a substitute to the living reality.
They had several target groups they knew would be a problem. Women were one of these groups. The Freedom Movement has an ugly tendency to vilify women. That is intentional.
That misdirect was accomplished through the work of a group of people who you can identify as NeoCon as well, although they can also be identified, quite truthfully, as the Public Relations arm of the corporations, a slightly different subset of individuals.
This is not really very hard to trace if you keep your mind clear and your eyes on the action instead of allowing yourself to be seduced by personalities and rhetoric.
The lynch pin was Ronald Reagan. Bill Buckley batted next.
Ronald Reagan was not a conservative. He was never a Conservative. If you read my article titled, "Ronald Reagan An Ugly Truth," you will see that this is well documented and attested to by Connie Ruffley, the present co-chairman of United Republicans of California, the same group that issued the resolution citing its causes and urging that no Republican support him in a bid for president for a possible Reagan candidacy in 1974.
Ronald Reagan was positioned to take over the Conservative Movement by a powerful group of men who proceeded to pay his bills forever after. Many of these were connected to USC. Before 1960 his politics were very different.
Since Ronnie was a friend of my Dad's I knew him. I also knew he was no Conservative. As Connie affirms and as I knew at the time Ronnie's record as governor of California clearly identified him as a corporate placement. He instituted withholding taxes. He prepared the ground for the new wave of Federalism to come in a variety of areas, including education. See the UROC resolution.
Ask yourself: Who today is publicly identified as the examplar of Conservativism?
Answer: Ronald Reagan.
That allowed them to steal the vision of freedom and recalibrate the definitions of the next two generations.
To steal a movement you need to do several things. For one thing you need a spokesman/leader who will be popular enough to quiet opposition. At the time we knew the people who went after the Conservative Movement and the John Birch Society as Rockefeller Republicans. William Buckley, whose attempt to take over the John Birch Society failed in 1965 1966, identified himself as a Conservative. Since he never held office it is impossible to see action as you would with someone who was elected. But if you examine what and who he supported over the years you will see that he was no such thing. He prides himself as having marginalized the JBS after his take over attempt. He attacked Welch for opposing the Vietnam War.
Then you need to get rid of anyone who will see that this is wrong and inappropriate and object. Women were targeted for that reason. Ronald Reagan delivered the final stroke.
During the 1980 Presidential campaign he met with a group of activist Republican women in a hotel in Los Angeles. His daughter Maureen was there as well. Reagan refused to listen to them and took the ERA out of the GOP platform. He did this to ensure large donations from corporations, including Coors but not limited to Coors.
The activist women left politics, leaving the GOP open to the faction then being organized for political activism by Part Robertson and Ralph Reed, just as they planned.
Today we recognize that the undeclared war in Vietnam was illegal. It benefited Halliburton, who was employed there, and other contractors including Koch Industries. These huge corporations with intimate connections to the Bush Administration are in Iraq today on cost plus contracts. On shore they enjoy protection from Bush as they did from his father.
