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RELATED LINKSInternal LinksProfiles: Other internal: External LinksCampaigns & Elections magazine Christian Communication Network website Strategic Internet Campaign Management website Thom Hartmann's "The Myth of National Victimhood - All Wrapped and Delivered for Christmas". Traditional Values Coalition website Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz Deathbed DollarsWhile Terri Schiavo was still alive, her parents agreed to sell their donor list to a right wing direct mail outfit, and radical right wing Christian groups were raising bundles off the caseDuring the weeks preceding Terri Schiavo's death, a number of radical right wing Christian fundamentalist groups stepped up to take full advantage of what the Traditional Values Coalition's (TVC) Rev. Lou Sheldon characterized as a "blessing...to the conservative Christian movement in America." Established organizations like the TVC, relative newcomers like RightMarch.com, and newly formed coalitions, like Voice for Terri, had their Web sites sizzling with news of the case and extensive fundraising appeals. Prior to Terri's death on Thursday, March 31, her parents had apparently agreed to sell the names and e-mail addresses of donors to and supporters of their daughter's case to Response Unlimited, a right wing direct mail house. However, within 20 hours of David Kirkpatrick's March 29 New York Times piece exposing the arrangement, Response Unlimited withdrew Schindler's list from its catalogue. Before removing the list from its web site, the Waynesboro, Virginia-based Response Unlimited (website) headed by Philip Zodhiates, was asking $150/month for 6,000 names and $500/month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Terri Schiavo's father, the Times reported. Advertising the list's availability and fundraising potential on its website the firm said: "These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri." The selling point was that the people on the list "are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!" The clients listed at Response Unlimited's website mostly consist of a large number of radical right wing personalities and organizations including, Alan Keyes 2000, Alliance Defense Fund, Christian Action Network, Christian Coalition of America, Christianity Today, Clinton Investigative Commission, Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer for President, George W. Bush for President, Heritage Foundation, Jerry Falwell Ministries, Jesse Helms for Senate, Judicial Watch, National Republican Congressional Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, National Rifle Association, National Right to Life, Parents Television Council, Pat Buchanan 2000, Pat Robertson for President, Prison Fellowship Ministries, Republican National Committee, Rudolph W. Giuliani for Senate, Rush Limbaugh, Traditional Values Coalition, Washington Times, and World Magazine. Now that Terri has died, what will happen with the Schindler list of donors? And how will the money raised around the Schiavo case be used by Christian right organizations? Saving Terri and Savings Accounts"Help Save Terri Schiavo's Life!" was the plea on the website of the Rev. Lou Sheldon's Anaheim, California-based Traditional Values Coalition (website), which the New York Times' Kirkpatrick describes as "a Christian conservative group best known for its campaigns against gay rights." Near the link to the website of her parents' foundation is a pitch to "become an active supporter of the Traditional Values Coalition by pledging a monthly gift." "What this issue has done is it has galvanized people the way nothing could have done in an off-election year," the Rev. Lou Sheldon, the founder of the TVC, told the New York Times. "That is what I see as the blessing that dear Terri's life is offering to the conservative Christian movement in America." A coalition of anti-abortion Christian right groups -- including representatives from Priests For Life, the Christian Defense Coalition, the National Clergy Council, the Pro-Life Action League, Operation Rescue, Generation Life and the Family Life Educational Foundation -- formed Voice for Terri (website) to raise money for their work around the Schiavo case. According to the Times' Kirkpatrick, these groups spent a great deal of time and energy demonizing Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband, sending e-mail messages and setting up websites attacking him. Troy Newman, a spokesperson for Voice for Terri and the president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue (website) -- the group founded by Randall Terry, who resurfaced in Florida as an invited spokesperson for the Schindler family -- said that the money raised was going to cover the costs of their activities in Florida, and of e-mail and letter-writing campaigns. "This is not something you make money off of," Newman told the Times. "It is a tragedy." Terry, writes Kirkpatrick, "asked his friends and fellow conservative activists, William Greene and Philip Sheldon - the son of Lou Sheldon of TVC - to help raise money through RightMarch.com (website), their organization whose slogan is "Patriotism in Action." Greene is President of RightMarch.com PAC. In mid-March Greene co-signed the following fundraising letter with Randall Terry: Dear Friend, It is unthinkable... like some dark scenario in a horror movie... but true. An innocent, disabled woman is now being starved to death. Her food and water were suspended on Friday afternoon. [...] Even if Congress does pass a bill and President Bush signs it, it will only put Terri's case into Federal jurisdiction. Our struggle to save Terri will begin anew. If you can help us keep up the fight, Just Go Here (link) Now. At the minute we are sending this e-mail to you, Terri is starving to death. [...] Give as generous a gift as you can in this historic battle to save Terri's life. We have to pay for email campaigns, meeting rooms, for a bus, for food, press releases, and a host of other items needed to create a firestorm of protest and outrage on Terri's behalf. The buses alone are $1000 each for each day. [...] Friend, every action we can take on Terri's behalf is worth the effort. A nation is judged by how it treats its weakest and most defenseless members. Each of us needs to love Terri, as we love ourselves. That means we do all we can to save her life. [...] Sincerely, Randall Terry, President Society for Truth and Justice William Greene's Right Wing EnterprisesThrough its "Christian Response e-Alert," RightMarch.com has become one of many right wing groups that concoct campaigns to "convince people that there is a 'them' out there -- liberals in this case -- who are out to destroy America's moral fiber and are thus responsible for working-class misery," as Thom Hartmann described the process in a late-December 2004 article entitled "The Myth of National Victimhood - All Wrapped and Delivered for Christmas". A case in point: a Christmas 2004 RightMarch.com inspired "e-Alert" that leaped into the middle of the Christian right's frenetic campaign "to STOP groups like the ACLU from removing all mentions of Christmas from the public square!" The e-Alert came with a laundry list of examples of how Christmas had supposedly been attacked during the year. The centerpiece of the campaign was a radio ad that RightMarch.com claimed aired "on over 200 STATIONS across America, EVERY DAY for the past TWO WEEKS, reaching over TWO MILLION PEOPLE each week with the message of how they can stand up and DEFEND Christmas from these blatant attacks." In addition, RightMarch's Christian Response team ran "full-page newspaper ads in national publications reaching over one hundred thousand readers, plus an internet ad campaign that has reached hundreds of thousands more viewers online!" (Emphasis in the original text.) Less than a week after Terri Schiavo's death, RightMarch.com donned battle fatigues for the mother of all judicial battles. With the Christian Response e-Alert focusing on "the far-leftists at MoveOn.org" and other liberal organizations, Team CR warned that liberals were trying "to stop President Bush from nominating solid conservative judges to the Supreme Court and other federal seats." The way to stop the liberals is by "getting Senators to change one Senate rule -- and stopping their [Democrats] 'judicial filibuster,'" otherwise known as the "nuclear option," and which RightMarch prefers to call the "constitutional option." For "just $19" RightMarch will send "Blast Faxes" to the GOP Senators or the Democrat Senators, and for "just $29," each and "EVERY SINGLE ONE" of the Senators will get a fax. Strategic Internet Campaign Management (SIC-EM)William Greene also presides over the Buford, Georgia-based Strategic Internet Campaign Management (SICM - website), an organization whose mission is "Helping nonprofit organizations, corporations and political candidates to achieve a better bottom line by using the Internet for fundraising and grassroots activism." Before starting up SICM, Greene earned his stripes as the vice president of Internet Marketing & Development at ConservativeHQ.com Inc. (website), an online fundraising outfit headed by the "Godfather of Direct Mail," Richard Viguerie. According to SICM's website, Greene is a veteran of a number of right wing campaigns: At C-HQ.com, he "spearheaded Internet grassroots efforts such as BackBush.com and the Sixty Second Activist Club, which generated over 1,020,000 faxes, 250,000 petition signatures, 15,000 hand-delivered mailgrams & FedEx's, and 125,000 emails/letters to Congress, the President and other leaders." He also worked with many of Viguerie's clients including the TVC, American Conservative Union, Texas Justice Foundation, Linda Chavez' Stop Union Political Abuse, the Conservative Leadership Political Action Committee, Federer for Congress, Conrad for Congress, Help Hospitalized Veterans, and the House Managers PAC, among others. Greene's company also hitched itself to the rather meager bandwagon of Alan Keyes, the radical right wing African American Illinois senatorial candidate who got beaten badly by Barak Obama last fall. In 2002, Campaigns & Elections magazine (website) selected Greene as one of its "Rising Stars of Politics"; the Washington Times called Greene a "conservative Internet guru," and he has been named to Who's Who in America in 2003 and 2004. Terri's parents have also set up a website, The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation (website), where they accept donations to the cause. According to the Times, the website, it is "the only legitimate place to contribute to her legal defense," and asks donors to bring to their attention "any other source that claims to be a fund-raising effort on [Terri's]...behalf." Gary McCullough's Past Association with Violent Anti-abortionistsAlthough officials at Response Unlimited refused comment on Schindler list issues, Gary McCullough, director of the Washington, DC-based Christian Communication Network (website) -- a "media relations service" -- and a spokesman for Terri Schiavo's parents, "confirmed" that Terri's father had made the deal after the company agreed to send a fundraising e-mail solicitation on the family's behalf. McCullough has worked with Operation Rescue and is a media advisor for Randall Terry. According to SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, McCullough and Terry have been involved with the Schindler family since October 2003, when they first visited the family. On October 13, 2003, Cybercast News Service (CNS - website), a subsidiary of the L. Brent Bozell's conservative news monitoring group, the Media Research Center (website), announced that "Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, and Gary McCullough of the Christian Communication Network have joined the effort to save a disabled woman from a court ruling that will end her life." "Terri's parents...who have not completely given up hope that somehow their daughter's life will be spared, invited [Randall Terry], as well as Gary McCullough of Christian Communication Network, to organize a round-the-clock vigil," CNS repoprted. "Terry...explained his reasons to WorldNetDaily (website) for becoming involved in the major euthanasia case. ... 'The fundamental right that all of us have is the right to life,' Terry said. 'Whether we're pre-born or disabled or in old age, no one has the right to summarily execute us.'...He and McCullough hope to draw 'statewide and national attention to this cruel execution,' said Terry." In late-March of this year, Salon's World O'Crap weblog wrote: "You recall Gary McCullough, don't you? He's the one who defended murderer Michael Griffin by claiming that killing an abortion provider is 'justifiable homicide,' was closely associated with double-murderer Paul Hill; funneled money to Clayton Waagner, the anti-abortion 'terrirst' who sent those anthrax hoax letters to abortion clincs; and has been arrested 30 times (he says) for his involvement in disruptive abortion protests." World O'Crap noted that he found "it interesting that nobody in the media has brought up Gary's past, even though he's been in the spotlight for days now in connection with his position as a 'Schindler family spokesman.'" Even Richard Viguerie thought that the list-selling caper was a bit pre-mature. But Viguerie believes that the controversy will blow over in good time. "I think it sounds a little unusual right now because of the situation where she is in the process of dying," Viguerie, told the New York Times. "If you came across this information six months or a year from now, I don't think you would give it too much thought." In a few months, when the Terri Schiavo case has drifted into the ether inhabited by such cultural cataclysms as the Elian Gonzalez case, those who sent money or a supportive message to the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation will discover that they've made Schindler's list. Their e-mail boxes and snail-mail boxes will be stuffed by a host of appeals from organizations pushing everything from the privatization of Social Security to school vouchers to an anti-gay-marriage amendment to the constitution. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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