Johnny goes to War

To members of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Movement John Gorenfeld has become notorious for his internet blog where he assembles Moon related information spiked with a considerable amount of cynical comments.
 

On his site he quotes Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist, calling the blog ‘superb’ and ‘indispensable’. Other media seem to like it, too. It has been featured in major outlets like the New York Times, ABC News and the Washington Post, according to the site.
 

But a closer look does not impress too deeply. This is not because of  the information itself, or its presence on the web or the cynicism. It rather comes from the obvious lack of quality in content and research.
 

The fact that Gorenfeld caters to a friendly crowd may not challenge his research and argumentation skills. The result is a lack of logic and development of argument - or the total lack of argument. Nowadays, if one wants to make a case against homosexual rights, for abstinence before marriage or just plain, old family values one has to try very hard just to avoid harm and ridicule. But a word against Sun Myung Moon and the movement is usually a sure thing. A sarcastic joke always gets its laughs here. Effort is not required.
 

Right now (July 26) one has to scroll through the blog for quite a distance to find something that actually is from him. The sections “Right and Left” and “Rave Review for Media Mogul NYT” actually contain only quotations from third parties, like from the movement’s publications and nothing of himself.
 

In “Right and Left” he actually quotes a Pentagon memo concerning the lack of professionalism of members of the movement. In particular it says that “If efforts are not taken to stop their growing influence and weed out current Moonie involvement in government, the president stands a good chance of being portrayed … as a poor, naive incompetent who is strong on ideology and weak on common sense.”
 

Interestingly, the quote is from 1984. That’s still before the end of the cold war – if you recall what that was. The president, whose reputation was allegedly at danger, was Ronald Wilson Reagan. He died very well respected in 2004. Gorenfeld seems to expect of his readers that they project the impression of a ‘poor, naive, incompetent’ towards the incumbent president, 21 years later. When the blog ‘exposes’ the appointments of Moonies to government posts, the mere mentioning of the Moon connection seems to suffice as an argument.
 

This is just one instance of what appears to be the general strategy behind Gorenfeld’s blogging – a shotgun approach that requires quantity rather than quality.
 

He also exhibits this usual tunnel vision when, on a different page, he laments Moon’s business involvement with North Korea while he has the nerve to mention – in the same paragraph - the fact that Hyundai – certainly not associated with the movement - actually won the bidding war for a major tourist project over there.
 

Then there is this whiny piece – dated 7/20/2005 - about David Payer buying gorenfeld.com in 2004 – a rather creative and amusing step in a free world like webspace. I wonder why John hadn’t bought it himself by then especially as he considers it his name: “Payer was inspired to buy my name, he said, when he didn't like my reporting exposing the March 23, 2004 ‘Crown Of Peace’ world peace ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.”
 

His following attempt to get the voters of the GOP into the equation is just another pathetic use of the shotgun approach: Try everything and see what sticks. (“But do conservative voters in Des Moines know this is how their party works?”)
 

A friendly crowd will forgive him.
 

Chatting about the wave of coronations must also have been a downhill battle, especially with the one in the Senate Building. More than 200 coronations later the world might understand that we are looking at religious ceremonies which even the old man himself doesn’t particularly enjoy. But for quite some time to come we will probably read of secret plots to take over the world and the installation of an “automatic theocracy” with Moon on the throne of God. The term is actually quoted several times in the blog. Read the true story behind that one in “Theocrazies” .
 

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the old man