The Matter of James Bevel
I would sure like to know what series of editing attempts brought the following sentence into the wikipedia article on James Bevel:
James Bevel […] in order to get his ideas on education into the limelight, ran as the vice presidential candidate in 1992 on Lyndon LaRouche’s ticket.
Understand the relatively lack of imporatnce of the association with Larouche to James Bevel’s life story is shown in the AP article’s mention of his running mate status as the final paragraph, guaranteed to be cut off in just about every newspaper that picks the story up. Whatever the back story of this association, the wikipedia sentence about “getting his ideas on education into the limelight” come across as a white-wash. (Curious items?)
The sick joke comes with what his “ideas on education” apparently were, as evidenced in the Incest Trial. Here are his “ideas on education”:
The woman said her family’s communal life included “meetings” and “informal classes” in which Bevel taught his philosophy of nonviolence and offered instruction on “overcoming shame and lust and guilt about sexuality.”
As a young girl, she said, “I did see my father have sex with my mom. My only thought was they looked like a cricket.”
Earlier, her mother, Helen Williams, said her former husband espoused a philosophy “that parents need to sexually orient their children.”
But, she said, when Bevel once suggested she have sex with their son, “I was shocked and repulsed by the idea.”
AND
The public defender told the jury to focus on the charge and not on other interactions Bevel had with Machado. Hoffman asked Bevel whether he had ever rubbed Machado’s chest — another allegation she has made but one that is not part of this criminal case.
“Yes, I have engaged in rubbing [her] chest in an educational context,” he said. Bevel testified that as a minister and a teacher, he has educated people, including his children, on the “science” of sex and marriage.
That “educational context†refers to Bevel’s views that sex should only be used to procreate, not in recreational, commercial or military ways. He referred to rape as “military sex.â€
In regards to rubbing a woman’s breasts, “it’s not sex if it’s not sexual,†Bevel said.
Several times, he distinguished between fornication and what he termed “constitutional intimacy.â€
Constitutional intimacy, according to Bevel, is when a man and woman have sex in order to have children, which is the way it should be done, according to him.
“Fornication to me is unlawful,†he said.
The father of 16, according to his testimony, often referred to offspring as “economically independent institutionally sovereign scientists and citizens.â€
If Bevel’s scientific definition of marriage is carried out, each girl born should take on the roles of mother, daughter, sister and wife immediately, while each boy should take on the roles of father, son, brother and husband immediately, he said.
… Well, it is all about creating a Scientific Revolution, I suppose.
May 24th, 2008 at 5:02 am
That was my mistake, and it has been corrected. Bevel ran as a congressional candidate in 1984 to get his education ideas into the limelight. He explained that he tried to get other candidates to run and talk about those ideas, but couldn’t find any, so he ran himself.
He also has said that when Lyndon LaRouche asked him to run for VP on Larouche’s ticket that he tried to find others to run as well, but that nobody would. Since LaRouche had a right to run according to the U.S. Constitution, and nobody would run with him, Bevel said he agreed to this run as well. During the campaign he did focus on his educational plan rather than on LaRouche’s platform.