The appeal of “Innocents’ Clubs”: Why some good people associate with disreputable groups that have awful positions
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It would take a competent political psychologist to provide a comprehensive, professional explanation as to why there have always been decent people who voluntarily associate with disreputable groups which advocate awful positions on political issues, particularly those involving international affairs.
It is nevertheless possible for non-professionals who have studied the nature of such groups and some of the basically good people lured into involvement with them to perceive some historical patterns and apply common sense analyses in reaching certain reasonable conclusions.
This is an important question not only in a theoretical sense, but also as a practical matter as it relates to Americans who have chosen to associate and become involved with pro-North Korean and other types of extremist groups which portray themselves as advocating worthwhile causes and noble aspirations, but whose actual positions and goals are far from virtuous.
Such groups were described by expert practitioners of communist propaganda in the 1930s as “Innocents’ Clubs.” The “innocents” were the ordinary members or backers of such groups, and were distinct from the key leaders who formulated the policy positions and cynically exploited them. This was accomplished by deliberately keeping the rank-and-file members ignorant as to the hidden and disreputable intentions and unsavory connections of the group by portraying it as something which it really was not. The classic example of this is a group which claims to be for “peace,” in the context of U.S. foreign policy, but which actually promotes or opposes foreign dictatorships hostile to the U.S. and the interests of those states.
Lest anyone imagine that this type of phenomenon occurs only in regard to pro-North Korean groups, a case in point relating directly to today’s headlines about the conflict between Israel and its enemies in Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, is exemplified in the left-wing American advocacy group known as J Street. This group strenuously insists that it is a “pro-Israel and pro-peace” entity, seeking to explicitly distinguish itself from organizations even further to the left, such as the extremists and terrorism-apologists of Jewish Voice for Peace, which does not hide its virulently anti-Israel stance.
However, in light of the demonstrable facts of the positions it takes, the other groups with which it collaborates, and those whose causes it defends as opposed to the causes it downplays or ignores, as well as its funding, it is far more accurate to characterize J Street as a group which is hostile to Israel, as many prominent mainstream American Jews, Jewish groups and Christian supporters of Israel now maintain.
The ordinary people who have been involved with J Street, such as young graduates, take its stated goals at face value and have not paid much attention to the details of some very disturbing revelations about the group and its positions. Such “innocents” are likely unaware, for example, that it originally backed and now calls for a return to the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, opposes the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s internationally recognized definition of antisemitism, deprecated the historic Abraham Accords, has urged lawmakers to block arms sales to Israel, and although it claims that it officially opposes boycotts against Israel, it nevertheless allies itself with those who promote such boycotts as well as with radical extremist groups which glorify terrorism. For these reasons, J Street is seen as a fringe group and has been strongly criticized by mainstream Jewish and Christian leaders and organizations supportive of Israel.
There is also a North Korea connection, since J Street opposed Israel’s crackdown on front groups controlled by the Marxist-Leninist terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, (PFLP), a U.S. designated terrorist organization, and leading campus activists with J Street have been accused of wearing T-shirts lauding a notorious PFLP terrorist.
J Street campus chapters have also co-sponsored events with pro-North Korea, pro-terrorist, antisemitic groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine, which is being investigated by Congress for its alleged links to terrorist groups. The PFLP and its top leaders have been closely allied with North Korea for decades. PFLP terrorists have been trained in the North and armed by the Pyongyang regime, and it was the PFLP, with North Korean support, which assisted the terrorists of the Japanese Red Army in carrying out the murder of Christian pilgrims to Israel in the Lod Airport massacre of 1972.
“Innocents’ Clubs,” ostensibly established for what their members considered to be a worthwhile cause, such as the so-called “nuclear freeze” movement of the 1980s, attracted the large numbers of ordinary Americans and Europeans as supporters who did not know, or did not wish to know, that the policies being advocated were being promoted by the Soviet Union and were extremely detrimental to the defense of the U.S. and Western Europe. State Department reports, Congressional investigations, and several authors and researchers, including Soviet dissidents and defectors from the USSR, revealed at the time – and which have been confirmed with even more disclosures from Soviet-era archives in subsequent years – showed that some of the leading organizations promoting a nuclear freeze included Soviet agents, were funded by Moscow, and were being manipulated to serve the interests of the USSR. The naive idealists who lent themselves to that cause were unaware, or perhaps in some cases simply did not care, that they were being cynically used to promote the goals of the Kremlin’s leaders.
There are possible explanations for the historical involvement of well-intentioned but deeply naive idealists in such groups that lie beyond political and moral considerations. Psychological factors likely also played and continue to play a key role in the attraction of such groups. Some people may join or support such groups due to a kind of “bandwagon” or “peer pressure” effect. They become involved because they have been urged to do so by friends and colleagues, or they have simply seen the involvement of their friends, and did not want to be left out, particularly if the cause in question was fashionable among young people, or among certain groups such as academics and entertainers.
This may explain how, for example, the famous, recently deceased movie star Robert Redford was once duped by pro-North Korean forces into writing an article opposing a naval base on South Korea’s Jeju island.
Once involved in an “innocents’ club,” supporters are also likely to ignore, and become defensive about and thereby dismiss out of hand any factual criticisms of the group. Even in cases where individuals eventually become disenchanted with a group and its positions, their sense of self-esteem may prevent them from openly breaking with the group, out of a sense of embarrassment in having to admit, to themselves or to others, that they had been deceived and manipulated.
A current example of an “innocents’ club” directly focused on North Korea-related issues is the innocently named Korean American Public Action Committee (KAPAC), which maintains extremely close ties to the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and its lawmakers in Seoul, and is strongly supportive of Korea’s current President Lee Jae-myung, just as it was of the previous left-wing President Moon Jae-in.
KAPAC is reportedly now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly functioning as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal. The main function of KAPAC is to lobby, in conjunction with those members of Congress whom it essentially has in its pocket based on unceasing flattery and large campaign donations, for a no-preconditions peace agreement between the U.S. and North Korea.
This lobbying effort takes the concrete form of support for the deceptively misnamed “Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act,” a bill in the House of Representatives designated as HR 1841. The bill amounts to a “wish list,” a true “dream come true” for Kim Jong-un, in that it grants a series of major concessions to the North, without demanding or even seeking anything whatsoever in return. It is for this reason that the bill has been strongly and publicly opposed by most moderate and conservative Korea experts and policymakers.
There are almost certainly some rank-and-file members and supporters of KAPAC who are not aware, or do not bother to become aware, that the group and its members have been collaborating in various ways with pro-North Korean and other extremist groups and activists, and that it includes some top advisors and key members who are involved with and supportive of pro-North Korean forces and have themselves made or endorsed pro-North, anti-U.S., pro-terrorist, and anti-ROK statements.
These ordinary members play no role in shaping the positions and activities of the group, yet they support it and participate in its events under the delusion, at least among some, that KAPAC is a genuine “peace” organization, because they have no idea of the influence of certain key pro-North Korean figures involved with pro-North forces.
Such “innocents” likely enjoy the camaraderie they experience by taking part in the group’s political and social activities, without delving too deeply into its true nature, and have been lulled into perceiving it as merely a Korean American community group engaged in what it trumpets as “public diplomacy.” They are also undoubtedly impressed, perhaps star-struck, by the uncritical support granted to KAPAC by certain self-serving politicians who are lavishly praised at its events and who in turn do the group’s bidding in Congress.
A question which naturally arises is whether or not the “innocents” involved in or supportive of such groups will eventually become so deeply enmeshed in their activities, so loyal to the leaders of the groups, that they are willing to promote any position advocated in the name of the groups.
A related question is whether or not those involved in “innocents’ clubs” of this type will at some point come to realize that they do not share the positions of the leaders of such groups, are troubled by the forces with which such groups collaborate and are allied, and will therefore eventually discontinue their involvement or support.
Although psychological factors as noted above tend to make it unlikely that such major desertions will occur, there have historically been dramatic events which have caused individuals committed to a group or a cause to begin to question their continued loyalty. During the period of the Nazi-Soviet alliance from 1939 through mid-1941, which triggered the outbreak of World War Two, for example, many Americans and Europeans resigned in disgust and disillusionment from groups which were supposedly founded to promote peace, but which were really pro-Soviet front groups which they discovered were following every twist and turn of the Kremlin’s foreign policy.
One may therefore hope against hope, in spite of the psychological barriers involved, that a similar process of disillusionment will eventually occur with regard to the rank-and-file supporters of modern day “innocents’ clubs.”
Lawrence Peck is a correspondent for NK Insider based in Seoul and Los Angeles. Having intensively researched and closely monitored the activities of pro-North Korea and other extremist groups and activists in the U.S. for over 25 years, he has been recognized in the U.S. and Korea as one of the leading American authorities on such topics, and has lectured, written extensively and been interviewed on such topics in the U.S. and Korea. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. He previously worked in Korea for several of the largest Korean business groups in the fields of intellectual property licensing and international business development. He also serves as an advisor to the North Korea Freedom Coalition of the U.S. Lawrence may be reached at the email address: lawrence.nkinsider@gmail.com
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