Rahm Emanuel's Think Tankers Enforce 'Message Discipline' Among 'Liberals'

The White House is ‘helping’ liberal groups to get their political messages in sync with the official line.

by Jeremy Scahill

http://images-1.redbubble.com/img/clothing/bodycolor:red/size:medium/view:main/541035-4-think-tank.jpg

Over the past several weeks, independent journalists and anti-war activists have tried to shine a spotlight on how groups like the Center for American Progress and MoveOn, which portrayed themselves as anti-war during the Bush-era, are now supporting the escalation and continuation of wars because their guy is now commander-in-chief. CAP has been actively pounding the pavement in support of the escalation in Afghanistan, the rebranding of the Iraq occupation and, more recently, Obama's bloated military budget, which the group said was "on target." MoveOn has been silent on the escalation in Afghanistan and has devoted substantial resources to a federal budget that includes a $21 billion increase in military spending from the Bush-era.

What is clear here is that CAP and MoveOn are now basically psuedo-official PR flaks targeting "liberals" to support the White House agenda. This, though, should not come as a shock to those who have closely monitored these groups. They were the primary force behind Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), "a coalition that spent tens of millions of dollars using Iraq as a political bludgeon against Republican politicians, while refusing to pressure the Democratic Congress to actually cut off funding for the war." Now, according to John Stauber, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, the Center for American Progress is now running "Progressive Media which was begun by Tom Matzzie and David Brock in 2008 and now ‘represents a serious ratcheting up of efforts to present a united liberal front in the coming policy wars....' are working hard to push Obama's policies, including rationalizlng or defending his escalation of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan as "sustainable security."

On Wednesday, Ben Smith at Politico reported on the latest development in this White House-coordinated campaign to use these think-tankers to whip up support for its agenda. It is a newly formed coalition, the Common Purpose Project, which blogger Jane Hamsher describes as "one of the many groups Rahm Emanuel has set up to coordinate messaging among liberal interest groups." This one includes the direct participation of White House officials, according to Smith:

The Common Purpose meeting every Tuesday afternoon at the Capitol Hilton brings together the top officials from a range of left-leaning organizations, from labor groups like Change to Win to activists like MoveOn.org, all in support of the White House's agenda. The group has an overlapping membership with a daily 8:45 a.m. call run by the Center for American Progress' and Media Matters' political arms; with the new field-oriented coalition Unity ‘09; and with the groups that allied to back the budget as the Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America Now.

Unlike those other groups, however, the Common Purpose meeting has involved a White House official, communications director Ellen Moran, two sources familiar with the meeting said. It's aimed, said one, at "providing a way for the White House to manage its relationships with some of these independent groups."

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/10-1

eom

i`ve been "politically aware" for about 50 years now so there`s nothing to much new under the sun.

or cutting off their funds....jesus.

:scared:

Eight years of bitching about Rove politicizing the White House and here we got the same thing going on. Worse it's not even being used to attack the Republicans but rather to whip supporters into lock step.

These big orgs are useless appendages of the ruling class and are best ignored. People are going to have to develop working class based organizations, these suburban/upper middle class outfits are fatally compromised, their leaders would rather be 'players' than stand for principle.

... with his first class people skills.

screw you and your corporate healthcare for profit bullshit.

The 21st century examples of the use of internet as a medium for protest, information and organizing exsist to borrow from. Their technique is successful, its just a matter of will, physical dedication, and 'lurking moar'.

The basic priciples would apply well on a board like DU, mostly due to the longevity and popularity of this board.

This is wrong. Sorry, but it's wrong.

This is a crucial component of corporate PR. I don't know if you have heard of a guy named Peter Sandman and the model's used to manage outrage. I'll provide a few links here. The essence though is not to alter policy or admit ot injustice but to control how people think about the situation. This is used to destroy and marginalize enviro,s, political protesters and otherwise social justice activists.

Essentially this is just an extension of propaganda techniques to assassinate the left. People who defend this sort of thing do the bidding of those who work to keep the people in servitude.

John Stauber does an excellent job of de-constructing this propaganda technique.

Dr. Peter M. Sandman
Outrage Management
(Low Hazard, High Outrage)

http://www.psandman.com/index-OM.htm

Here's an old article on what we are discussing here:

WAR ON TRUTH
The Secret Battle for the American Mind

An Interview with John Stauber
Published in "The Sun"
March 1999


Australian academic Alex Carey once wrote that "the twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

In societies like ours, corporate propaganda is delivered through advertising and public relations. Most people recognize that advertising is propaganda. We understand that whoever paid for and designed an ad wants us to think or feel a certain way, vote for a certain candidate, or purchase a certain product. Public relations, on the other hand, is much more insidious. Because it's disguised as information, we often don't realize we are being influenced by public relations. But this multi-billion-dollar transnational industry's propaganda campaigns affect our private and public lives every day. PR firms that most people have never heard of - such as Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton, and Ketchum - are working on behalf of myriad powerful interests, from dictatorships to the cosmetic industry, manipulating public opinion, policy making, and the flow of information.

As editor of the quarterly investigative journal PR Watch, John Stauber exposes how public relations works and helps people to understand it. He hasn't always been a watchdog journalist, though. He worked for more than twenty years as an activist and organizer for various causes: the environment, peace, social justice, neighborhood concerns. Eventually, it dawned on him that public opinion on every issue he cared about was being managed by influential, politically connected PR operatives with nearly limitless budgets. "Public relations is a perversion of the democratic process," he says. "I knew I had to fight it."

In addition to starting PR Watch, Stauber founded the Center for Media and Democracy, the first and only organization dedicated to monitoring and exposing PR propaganda. In 1995, Common Courage Press published a book by Stauber and his colleague Sheldon Rampton titled Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry. Their second book, Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?, came out in 1997 and examined the public-relations coverup of the risk of mad-cow disease in the U.S.

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http://www.derrickjensen.org/stauber.html

Democrats need to understand the nature of information wars and the role the internet can play in them, and they need tactics.

That said, if a call is made to bring DU "into the fold" for times other than major elections (the board is completely gamed in the 15-6 months running up to presidential elections, and I assume the admins are aware of at least some of it) such as some Obamabots keep trying to do now, and the admins choose to come down on either side, as a paying member - even on the small change side - I believe they really owe it to us to announce this so people can take it or leave it.