"San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper is published for the benefit of informing upper middle-class readers, and corporate investors (as seen by their business section, as opposed to a worker's section). The newspaper is available for free at expensive hotels, and at private clubs like the Bohemian Grove itself. The owners of the newspaper, the Hearst Corporation, are loyal to the members of Bohemian Grove, and members rely on the Hearst Corporation to censor and distort the message regarding critiques of capitalism, generally, and especially to censor information critical of the values of the wealthy, including members of Bohemian Grove. So, when the "San Francisco Chronicle" publishes a story about Bohemian Grove, it is certain that the story will not offer information critical of the Bohemian Grove, but instead offer a "perception management" that makes the protesters seem ridiculous. For example, today's story about the protests at Bohemien Grove was given the following headline at the newspaper's main website:
2013-07-26 "Bohemian protest brouhaha — burning babies or just kicking back?"
[http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2013/07/26/bohemian-protest-brouhaha-burning-babies-or-just-kicking-back/]:A clash between self-described hippies and libertarians has thrown the traditional protest against the annual Bohemian Grove encampment into turmoil.
Mary Moore, the 78-year-old leader of the “old hippy” activist group Bohemian Grove Action Network, is boycotting the protest of the retreat in the redwoods near Monte Rio for the first time in 33 years because, she said, paranoid, foaming-at-the-mouth radicals have horned in on the demonstration.
The object of her scorn is “libertarian” Sean Ackley, 44, of Brentwood, who held a protest at the gates this year in an attempt to spread the word about what he believes are baby burning rituals, sex slavery and other satanic schemes, which Moore — and the club, for that matter – called “nonsense.”
The kerfuffle is no laughing matter for the club, which denies all evil doing. Representatives say the guys are merely attempting to enjoy music, art and good company until the camp closes Sunday. Read more about the fabled Bohemian encampment here.
In her Camp Meeker home, Mary Moore stops to pet her dog Cota Wednesday July 24, 2013 surrounded by memorabilia from the 1960s. Mary Moore, the longtime leader of the Bohemian Grove Action Network, is boycotting her own protests because another group run by a Tea Party advocate is horning in on her territory. Moore plans to continue to attack the rich and powerful men using writings.
Activist Sean Ackley poses for a portrait in his home in Brentwood, Calif. on July 24, 2013. Ackley is protesting the Bohemian Grove, a gathering place for powerful men.
by Peter Fimrite from "San Francisco Chronicle" [http://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Evildoers-or-empire-builders-Opponents-disagree-4688047.php]:
Mary Moore, longtime Bohemian Grove Action Network leader, doesn't think participants in the annual gathering are evil, but she objects to the idea that powerful men hole up in the woods to discuss policy. (Photo by Brant Ward, The Chronicle)
There are mysterious dark happenings going on these days outside the Bohemian Grove, where the traditional hectoring of bigwigs and luminaries who attend the annual encampment has been thrown into turmoil. A protest group is boycotting the protest against the annual clandestine frolic in the Sonoma County redwoods because of what its members view as the unsavory antics of a rival group of protesters. It's the first time in 33 years that Mary Moore and the Bohemian Grove Action Network have not picketed, or at least worn ironic costumes denigrating the gentlemen's club retreat.
The "old hippies," as Moore describes her group, refuse to take up the cause this year because they disagree with a group of libertarian Johnny-come-latelies over the relative evilness of the gathering in the woods around Monte Rio.
The boycott of the protest has left things troublingly calm for the 2,000 or so businessmen, entrepreneurs, musicians and artists who make up San Francisco's Bohemian Club and who have been arriving for the all-male campouts at the famous Russian River retreat since July 11.
Moore, 78, of nearby Camp Meeker, says the leader of the new group is a paranoid, foaming-at-the-mouth radical who deliberately misled people into believing the two groups have the same philosophy.
"I just think he's a misguided man who wants to believe in satanic worship," said Moore, who canceled her planned protest this year for the first time since 1980, when the group held an antinukes protest outside the gates. "We've never subscribed to this nonsense that they are burning babies and that there are underground sex chambers and it's all a satanic thing. That's just silly stuff and it confuses the hell out of people."
Reasonable guy?
Her rival, Sean Ackley, 44, of Brentwood, says he is a perfectly reasonable guy. Just because he believes the club takes part in homosexual prostitution, sex slavery and nefarious take-over-the-world type schemes does not mean the two groups cannot join forces, he said.
The protest is important, he maintains, because more people need to know about the Grove's owl idol - which he likened to the Old Testament story of Molech and heathens sacrificing their first-born sons - and the opening night symbolic "cremation of care" ceremony that he contends is actually a baby-burning ritual.
"I believe it is a ritual that represents something dark, and that's where Mary and I don't see eye to eye," Ackley said. "Representatives of our government and corporations are participating in this."
Despite purported chuckling over scotches around the campfire, the kerfuffle is no laughing matter for the club, which has for years been fodder for conspiracy theorists and the target of attacks by women's groups. Activities during the fabled encampment, which ends Sunday, are generally kept secret, but gumshoe reporting and eyewitness accounts over the years have uncovered instances of boozing, bad piano playing, off-color jokes, off-key campfire singing and the unregulated, often indiscriminate, watering of trees.
Club representatives insist that the nonprofit organization - founded in 1872 by five newspapermen, a Shakespearean actor, a vintner and a couple of local merchants - is dedicated to the simple enjoyment of music, literature, drama and the arts. Networking, job-seeking, and discussions about business and policy are strictly prohibited by the club, whose motto is "weaving spiders, come not here."
Grainy photos
Sam Singer, the Bohemian Club spokesman, said false depictions of club activities have put people in danger in the past, most notably in 2002 when a bumbling, hooded commando who called himself the "Phantom Patriot" invaded the grove.
The man, Richard McCaslin, of Carson City, Nev., was dressed in an outlandish superhero-style costume and carrying guns, knives and bomb launchers when he was arrested in the empty camp. He claimed he was inspired by stories about "bizarre, Luciferian ceremonies" at the club by Austin, Texas, radio personality Alex Jones.
Ackley has said he, too, was inspired by Jones, who snuck into the Grove once and took grainy pictures of fire during the cremation of care ceremony. He posted these on his website and in a book accompanied by drawings he added of pentagrams and creepy-sounding phrases about "dark secrets" and the "order of death."
The ritual, say club officials, is a harmless ceremonial burning away of the burdensome cares of business and civilization that campers are supposed to leave behind. Singer, the president of Singer Associates in San Francisco, said insinuations that the ceremony is some kind of pernicious baby-burning ritual are dangerously irresponsible in addition to being patently ridiculous.
'Hard to fathom' -
Jones, Ackley and the other conspiracy theorists "say things that are libelous, defamatory, dishonest and misleading," Singer said. "They make up these things that are simply hard to fathom."
Singer was less critical of Moore, who contends that the problem is not that evil is occurring, but that powerful men are holing up behind closed gates and discussing policy, particularly at what are called Lakeside Talks held next to the grove's picturesque lily-covered pond.
"I don't care if they wear pink tutus or what they do in there," she said. "It's a place for decision makers to gather and do these policy talks."
"We disagree with Mary Moore and her organization, but we are supportive of their right to protest," said Singer, who claims Moore is wrong about the policy talks, but at least depicts the club honestly. "She has been an able and honest opponent from day one, and we value her opinion."
While Moore and her cohorts were not there to greet the captains of industry at the Bohemian Grove this year, she said there is still hope for next year.
"We're doing research on fracking as a theme next year," she said. That's assuming Ackley and his group don't come back.
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