The Bucks County Beacon attended the seventh annual Rod of Iron Freedom Festival Oct. 11-12 in the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania. Unlike previous years, the festival didn’t take place on the grounds of the Tommy Gun Warehouse, but at Rod of Iron Ministries’ Sanctuary Church, which according to event organizers had a bit to do with the $100,000 insurance policy that the Moon’s had to front when it was at the gun shop. There were still some vendors selling quite good BBQ, weird camo pillows, promoting the NRA and potentially racist leather products like previous years – but this time there was no leader speaking, no Sean Moon.
A quick refresher for anyone not familiar with our previous coverage of the Rod of Iron Ministries. Sean Moon considers himself the spiritual successor to his father, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church which is more widely known as “The Moonies.” If you’re of a certain age you’ll remember mass marriages happening at Madison Square Garden. Sean has taken his father’s anti-communism to a different place – the worshipping of guns and a cult-like devotion to Donald Trump.
Every year ROI gets a surprising guest list for a small festival in rural Pennsylvania, Sebastian Gorka, Jack Posobiec and Steve Bannon have all spoken. This year was more low key, except for disgraced Lt. General Michael Flynn returning to speak and answer questions.
We did see a surprising mainstreaming of the Rod of Iron Festival with a speech from Conservative Political Action Conference regular Gordon Chang. Chang is a CPAC board member and known as a China hawk. This made him a perfect fit for this year’s theme – an end to the CCP and fearmongering about the threat of China.
Chang, who predicted the 2011 collapse of China in his book “The Coming Collapse of China”, has revised the year annually. He y claimed that the communist state was weaponizing Ebola in their labs. His proof? The fact that Chinese scientific labs have ebola at all. He proposed that we end all trade with China immediately.
Sean is in Taiwan… and doesn’t seem to be coming back?
The Chinese fearmongering of course didn’t stop there. Pastor Sean Moon spoke via a heavily edited video on a beach, opening with the 46 year old playing a long flute looking out to the ocean. The address wasn’t his usual fiery bullet-crowned speech, but did claim that Trump’s victory was a “miracle” upon itself – and that’s why he’s in Taiwan. He claimed that Trump’s victory last year stopped what would have allowed Kamala Harris to “create a new order of where China would be on the rise, Xi Jinping would be the emperor of the world.” Why would Harris want that? He doesn’t specify other than to say that it was all “planned by the globalist and a political Satanist elite.”
The conspiracies don’t stop there – Charlie Kirk’s killing is another one. While Moon doesn’t specify who is behind the shooting, “Mossad or Iran or China or whatever,” he believes that “obviously the feds are not telling the truth.”
At least one of the Rod of Iron leaders seemed to be worried that he might not return. Sean had been splitting his time between his new church in Tennessee and the Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, but decided to go to Taiwan to be on what they consider the frontline of the war against the China/CCP. It was supposed to be a short trip, but it’s now been months.
The General is Back
Lt. General Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Advisor who last year made news with his line claiming he was going to be “unleashing hell” on his enemies if Trump won, was a bit more subdued this time around. Flynn, who played around with the world of QAnon, jumped on Trump’s military speech line about the “enemy within.” The “deep state” is to blame for why things aren’t changing quick enough for the MAGA world or as Flynn calls it “this axis of resistance inside of our government.”
He expanded on the idea though:
“It’s not just in Washington, D.C., right? It’s not. It’s right here in our school boards, right here in our town councils. It’s right here in our city councils. It’s right here in our county, you know, our county commissioners.”
During his Q&A, Flynn was asked a question about QAnon related numbers from a man wearing a t-shirt promoting a Q-related show on Rumble. That seemed to piss him off, dismissing the question and moving on to the next one. Flynn also hasn’t had his military pension fully restored, saying that “I hope the Department of War is listening.”
Like many of the speeches this weekend, Flynn went after the media. Seemingly still fuming from the fact that a documentary crew used a boom mic to try and catch audio from a conversation he was having with a group of fans, he dismissed journalism saying, “The media is just the weapon system the left uses.”
The Ivan Raiklin and J6er show
Without many of the big names of angry white men returning, conspirator and self-proclaimed “Secretary of Retribution” Ivan Raiklin controlled the mic for a considerable amount of the two days at the Sanctuary. Anyone who has met Ivan knows that he loves two things: hearing himself talk and screwing with journalists. The former Army reservist held a rank of Lt. Colonel and is the internet famous for getting a retweet from President Trump sharing the “Pence Card” theory on how to overthrow the 2020 election.
Even after thousands got away with a failed coup against the people that voted in the 2020 election, and the commutations and pardons given by Trump to nearly every single person who was sent to jail for their crimes on Jan. 6th – that isn’t enough for Raiklin.
Ashli Babbit’s family is receiving $5 million from the Federal government, still not enough.
Raiklin, who has now called for revenge against his perceived enemies in government and the media (he’s got their name on a t-shirt he wears everywhere, and of course sells).
“We need a memorial funeral in Washington, DC for Ashley Babbitt. Hero giving her life for this country. We saw white horse drawn carriage funeral for the feckless Capitol Police officers. They turned their weapons on unarmed Americans. They were brought to the Super Bowl. They were lauded around like heroes. The J6ers had just barely been tolerated back in society. I think that Roseanne Boyland, Ashley Babbitt, Kevin Greeson and Benjamin Phillips, the four Americans that lost their life defending our country, deserve a memorial welcome.“
Also on the “Unveiling J6th Truth” panel was Jake Lang, who earlier this year announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate in Florida. He’s from Pennsylvania, but told Bucks County Beacon that Florida was more friendly to J6ers. Jake announced from the stage earlier in the weekend that they “took the Capitol building.” It was, he claims, their right under the Constitution, but at the same time “the FBI was embedded. They were inciting and riling up people.”
They want it both ways, they were innocents, but also they did occupy the Capitol building and are proud of it.
Lang stole a police shield and carried a baseball bat which he used to attack Capitol Police officers in his attempt to get into the building on Jan. 6th. You can see him with a gas mask in the image at the link.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, while Lang was in jail he “attempted to create a national militia from his prison cell.” Like Raiklin, he’s not happy with just receiving a pardon or commutation for their attempted insurrection on January 6th, he wants more.
“My brothers, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys. Not all of them have been pardoned. Because they’re felons and they’re only been commuted that have been pardoned for their alleged crimes. They don’t have VA benefits,” said Lang.
In an interview, he spoke of his anger with Trump’s appointees, like Pam Bondi, for pushing back against the Proud Boys $100 million lawsuit against the federal government. He still defended Trump, claiming that they were doing it without him knowing.
Bonfire of the “Whore”
Every year the Rod of Iron festival ends with a massive bonfire, the metaphorical burning of “Whore of Babylon.” Last year they burned a transgender flag on top of the mountain of wooden pallets, this year it was symbolically the Communist Chinese Party (CCP). Once again the Japanese choir sang American hymns holding candles. The pastor of the Rod of Iron Ministries read from Revelations as the fire blazed behind him.
As the fire spread to the grass around the pallets the 100 or so gathered left for a small chapel on the grounds for a wedding.