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ORIGINAL RESEARCHJerry Landay A Brass-Balled Warrior's Flight From the RightConservatives who run the Republican Party often pay perverse honor to detested liberal adversaries by copying Blinded They ape Leninist, Trotskyite, and Maoist tactics to undermine the left. Wealthy patrons of the radical right have copied the architecture of Stalin’s international popular front, creating a constellation of hundreds of activist front-organizations that comprise a network of right-wing activism:
Hard-starboard forces importantly exploit the tactics of Antonio Gramsci, founder of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci preached that a political movement, to prosper, must capture a nation’s culture. For two decades, the well-meshed power apparatus of the radical right has been doing just that, leaving the enfeebled Left in the dust with its single-issue myopia, dilettanti politics, weak-kneed funders, and a Democratic Party chained by Clinton, Gore, and Lieberman to a paralyzing dependency on corporate handouts. The right has conceived and promoted the policies America argues about, then frames the debate around them. Those doing the job are rep-tied, horn-rimmed members of the massive conservative propaganda machine who operate under the mythic smokescreen they created called the “liberal press.” Conservatives go on to manage the anti-left political dirt that oozes into newspapers and onto television news. The mode of these squads of self-serving young propagandists is take-no- prisoners polemics – writers, journalists, and lawyers who earn good money and get big foundation grants trashing the left in rightist journals and talk shows, and force-feeding the corrosive content into mainstream media. David Brock was the most notorious brass ball warrior of the poison-pen lot. He authored the big smear against law professor Anita Hill, who had vainly tried to squelch the Supreme Court nomination of her former boss, Clarence Thomas, by revealing his penchant for pornography and sexual harassment. Brock now confesses that in his infamous The Real Anita Hill, he created “a cruel smear disguised as a thorough investigation,” dumping, unchecked and uncorroborated, “virtually every derogatory – and often contradictory – allegation” fed him by conservative sources. Brock fueled the disinformation campaign, inspired in part by Newt Gingrich, against Bill and Hillary Clinton. The campaign’s aim was to portray them as “moral monsters,” leaving Clinton too weak to govern (Clinton himself later unwittingly helped). Brock exploited the money-and-publicity grubbing of four Arkansas state troopers who guarded Governor Clinton, and then lied for pay about his alleged sexual escapades after he became President. Brock launched “Troopergate” in an article called “His Cheatin’ Heart” in the right-wing literary dump-truck, The American Spectator, now defunct. Brock promoted the rumor that Hillary Clinton had an affair with former law partner Vince Foster. He was driven to suicide by the smears. Brock reveals all in a new political confession that rivals in detail the late Whittaker Chambers’ conversionist literary sensation of the 50s, Witness. Brock travels in the opposite political direction, from right to left. In an eloquent self-disavowal of his hatchet-man tactics called Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative (Crown Publishing), he bears detailed witness to the hypocrisies and outrages of Republican conservatism during the past two decades. Corporate-owned journals have failed to investigate what Brock now reveals about the conservative-generated scandals to de-fund and destroy the left. The campaign easily out-slimes Joe McCarthy, but few are even aware of its operation. It pays to work for the right. Brock earned a plush pad in stylish Georgetown and a beach house in Delaware for his labors. But money can’t buy happiness. There was a grievous problem that Brock could not solve with money and power: his gayness. He lived as a homosexual, self-stuffed into the closet to protect his fame and status in a radical-right world where being homophobic, anti-Black and anti-Semitic comes with mom’s milk. Brock is shaken when the likes of Norman Podhoretz, editor of the right-wing Commentary, once Brock’s sacred screed, writes that a vaccine for AIDS would allow homosexuals “to resume buggering each other by the hundreds with complete medical impunity.” Brock reveals the existence of an army of gay conservatives in Washington, “closeted opportunists” who hide in desperation in an after-hours capitol-city subculture from the denizens of the religious and social right wing, who embrace gay-bashing as an “explicit party strategy” (many underground GOP gays refer to themselves as the “Laissez Fairies”). How Brock was “outed” by New York Times columnist Frank Rich and then confronted the opportunistic lie he was living is a singular metaphor for the relentless implosion of this democracy, and a spur to understanding its slow collapse. Through neglect and fear, some critics and editors will work to keep Brock’s book off the best-seller list. But anyone who is oppressed and outraged by rightist, brass-balled terrorism, or worries about the bedraggled state of the conversation of America’s culture, must read the book. It’s a particularly relevant case study for aspiring young journalists in how ideological fanatics can convert a free press into a precision-guided missile. A voyage to a local bookstore is well worthwhile for access to the only political tome of its kind in two decades, detailing the corrosive ideological cleavage that eats at the political heart and soul of the Republic. 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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