Media Mogul Murdoch Is Big Muscle Behind Fraudulent Astro Turfers

[Joanne98]

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet
Posted on August 20, 2009, Printed on August 20, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142068/

As nearly 2,000 progressives made their way last weekend to Pittsburgh for the annual Netroots Nation conference, the right made its stand in the same town with a conference called RightOnline, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a group that has gained notoriety for its involvement in organizing seemingly grassroots opposition to health-care reform.

Billed as a counterconference to the Netroots Nation gathering of bloggers and online activists, RightOnline convened at a Sheraton hotel, offering a few 101-level workshops on new technologies like Twitter and YouTube.

But the highlight of the conference was a red-meat program of speakers designed for a crowd of older activists who were hungry to hear myriad myths about the myriad forms of oppression in store for them if they don't stop the purportedly nefarious agenda of President Barack Obama.

"Great news to report," AFP policy director and FoxForum contributor Phil Kerpen told the crowd. "Our numbers are up; Netroots Nation's numbers are down; we are catching up to them online."

AFP claimed to draw 600 participants to RightOnline; Netroots actually drew about the same number of registrants as last year, according to conference organizer Raven Brooks -- about 1,900.

Americans for Prosperity is by far the slickest of the astroturf groups organizing disgruntled right-wingers of the "regular folks" variety into shouting mobs at town-hall meetings focused on health-care reform.

Sponsored in the past, according to SourceWatch, by the oil interests of Koch Industries, and a foundation headed by notorious right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife, AFP is wedding public fear about health-care reform -- fear it has done its best to stoke -- to a larger agenda embraced by ground-level activists that includes opposition to the cap-and-trade climate bill and Internet neutrality.

Indeed, AFP's exploitation of fears about health-care reform appear to be merely a means to a larger end.

Think these guys are appeased by the administration's talk of dumping the public health insurance option from the health-care reform bills currently working their way through Congress?

Phil Kerpen all but said he'd rather the plan be kept in the bill, the better to organize against.

"I'm scared that they're gonna take the public option out of this bill," Kerpen told the crowd, "and we're gonna be caught a little off-guard if we're not ready. Because, frankly, without the public option, it's not socialism anymore, but it's pretty close to fascism. It's a corporatist kind of thing. … So don't just focus on the public option. We have to kill this whole plan."

Not Your Father's Astroturf

Americans for Prosperity is, perhaps, the brightest and shiniest of the astroturf organizations responsible for the misinformed, disruptive and sometimes dangerous citizens who continue to turn up at town hall meetings conducted by members of Congress over the August recess. All count themselves as members of the Tea Party movement of anti-tax activists.

His activists tour the country in a big, luxury motor coach painted in red, white and blue, sporting the slogan, "Keep Your Hands Off My Health Care!" With its spiffy graphics and tech-savvy persona, the aesthetics of Americans for Prosperity are reminiscent of the Christian Coalition events and materials of the mid-1990s.

That's not surprising, given that AFP President Tim Phillips is a former business partner of Ralph Reed, who, as its executive director, brought the Christian Coalition to national prominence. Phillips and Reed continue to work in tandem.

Although Reed went on to ignominy for his involvement in the Jack Abramoff lobbyist scandal, he is now attempting a comeback with a new organization, the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

While Phillips was the master of ceremonies at the RightOnline event, Reed shared the stage with Dick Armey at an anti-health-care rally in Atlanta that was co-sponsored by Americans for Prosperity.

By comparison, the other astroturfing operations AlterNet covered in previous reporting -- all of which count themselves as part of the Tea Party movement -- look rough around the edges.

FreedomWorks, led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, is basically your father's astroturfing outfit, rallying the grumpy-old-man crowd to great effect on behalf of Armey's former K Street clients.

ResistNet, the "official community" of Grassfire.org, is a home-made-looking meeting place for gun enthusiasts, militia types, birthers and the most ardent of the Obama-is-Hitler contingent.

Glenn Beck's 9-12 Project draws from the audience for the derangement he displays on his Fox News Channel program, but he has closed down the comments section of his site ever since rowdies at a Tampa town hall that turned violent mentioned Beck as their inspiration to the local newspaper. (However, a link to a schedule of town hall events does appear on the 9-12 Project's home page.)

Of course, there's plenty of crossover among the constituencies of the various sites, and plenty of links among the players.

For instance, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who famously predicted that health-care reform would be Obama's "Waterloo," appeared in the video that opened the RightOnline general session. His endorsement also graces the Grassfire.org Web site, as do the plaudits of Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., chairman of the Republican Caucus, who sent in a video message to the RightOnline crowd.

Phillips, the AFP president, worked on Armey's political campaigns.

While Fox News has hardly been secretive about its involvement in the anti-health care cause, the reach of its parent company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., goes further than the utterances of its pundits over the airwaves, or Beck's 9-12 Project.

The Americans for Prosperity roster of RightOnline conference speakers was heavily populated by those who toil for Murdoch -- fully one-third of the list of 15 -- in addition to two others who have links to Murdoch.

Fox News contributors Michelle Malkin and Jim Pinkerton addressed the crowd, as did columnists John Fund and Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, another News Corp. property. AFP Policy Director Kerpen writes a column for FoxNews.com. Pittsburgh radio host Glen Meakem works for a Clear Channel station whose featured programming includes the Wall Street Journal Report, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Ronald Kessler writes for NewsMax, which was founded by a former reporter for the New York Post, yet another News Corp.entity.

When I asked Phillips about the Fox/Wall Street Journal connection to his organization, he looked surprised.

"We have someone from Fox News?" he asked.

"Well, Fox News Channel contributors," I replied.

"OK. So, they're not on the payroll of Fox News. Do any of those guys get money from Fox News?"

He's asking me? "I don't know if they're paid by Fox," I said, "but I assume that they are. Do you have a partnership with Rupert Murdoch?"

"Not at all, not at all," he replied with a little laugh. "The fact is, the Wall Street Journal's my favorite newspaper; I love those guys. I like what they write. I look at Steve Moore and John Fund, and those are two of the smartest guys. They're also entertaining, in addition to being philosophically sound.

"I don't know if you've read The End of Prosperity, Arthur Laffer and Steve Moore's book; it's one of my favorite books of the last three or four years. I've really found it to be incisive, so I really like those guys. But there's no partnership -- financially, understood, or anything else."

I checked with the Fox News Washington bureau, and indeed Malkin and Pinkerton are paid by Fox, and are branded by the news channel, listed on the "talent" page of its Web site. Fund and Moore are full-time employees of the Wall Street Journal, and AFP's Kerpen has a weekly platform on Fox's well-traveled Web site.

What Murdoch Hath Wrought

In the cable and broadcast spectrum occupied by Fox News Channel and Fox Television, Murdoch operates through a public trust, as do all cable and broadcast outlets.

As much as he hates to share, Murdoch is using the common property of the United States to turn out mobs at town hall events for the purpose of intimidating members of Congress and spreading disinformation about what's in the health care bills.

Continued>>.
http://www.alternet.org/politics/142068/utilizing_public_airwaves%2C_media_mogul_murdoch_is_big_muscle_behind_fraudulent_astro_turfers/