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Recent
Stories
June
20, 2003
Gary
Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"
June 19, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bush Plays the Racial Profiling Card:
It's a Smokescreen
Brian
Cloughley
Punch-and-Judy in the West Wing:
The Powell-Rice Show
David Lindorff
What's Next?
Mark
Jacobs
A Serious Conversation: a Former Foreign Service Officer on Diplomacy
in the Age of Bush
Alfredo
Castro
Bloodbath in Colombia: The Army and the Death Squads
Saul
Landau
Lying, Flag Waving and Redefining
Conservative Values
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log, 6/19
June
18, 2003
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
Elaine
Cassel
Dark Star Chambers: Secret Trials,
Nameless Defendents, Veiled Threats to Defense Lawyers
Col.
Daniel Smith
Iraq's WMDs: Integrity, Ethics and
Intelligence
Chris
Fagen
Ignoring the World's Bloodiest War
Rick
Fantasia and Kim Voss
Bush's Low Intensity War on Labor
Sam
Hamod
Theater of Deception: Bush, Sharon,
Abbas
M.
Shahid Alam
Illuminating Tom Friedman
Jon
Brown
Greens & Dems: a Reply to Publius
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log, 6/18
June
17, 2003
Dr.
Susan Block
Sex, Lies and WMDs
Elaine
Cassel
Scalia, the Rumsfeld of the Supremes
Roger Burbach
Brazil Under Lula
Dan
Bacher
The WTO's War on Salmon
Peter
Phillips and Jason Spencer
Entertainment Media 2003
Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation
The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century
Wayne Madsen
Outting Ashcroft's Latest Hypocrisy
Larry
Kearney
Starlight
Steve
Perry
The Bush Administration
Lies Marathon, Day 3
June
16, 2003
Frida
Berrigan
Death in Aceh: US Weapon Aid the
Repression
Publius
Candidate Dem and Citizen Green
Tarif
Abboushi
Roadmap or Roadkill?
Rep. John
Conyers
Bush's Deceptions about Iraq Threaten Democracy at Home
Julian
Samuel
A Review of Pilger's The New Rulers of the World
Uri
Avnery
The Children of Death
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies,
Part 2
June
14 / 15, 2003
Edward
Said
A Roadmap to What and Where?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's
Mad Quest for the Federal Bench
David Lindorff
Rumsfeld v. Belgium
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice
Lee Sustar
US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich
Ben
Tripp
Of Dissidents and Dissonance
William
S. Lind
Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence
Joanne
Mariner
Rebellious Judges
Gila Svirsky
A Macabre Alliance
Mickey
Z.
Where We Are
Chris Floyd
Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder
Noah
Leavitt
Peru as Our Crystal Ball?
Yves Engler
and Bianca Mugyenyi
The G8 and Africa
Dr.
Gerry Lower
Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
Ted Dace
A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature
Adam
Engel
Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer
Website
of the Weekend
AEI: Starts Wars; Creates
Poverty
June
13, 2003
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Counting Bush's
Lies, part 2
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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June
20, 2003
Grannies and Baby Bells
The
Gray Panthers' Corporate Connection
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
and ROBERT WEISSMAN
With millions in corporate monies marinating everything
from the Congress to the Smithsonian, little is left untouched.
From the Nature Conservancy, to the National
Consumers League, the corporate cash is flowing, and many public
interest groups are swimming in it.
Even the Gray Panthers, that venerable
public interest group started by Maggie Kuhn to fight for the
rights of seniors against the corporate goliaths, cannot stay
dry for long.
They too have been soaked.
Earlier this month, the Gray Panthers
took out full page ads in newspapers around the country calling
on federal officials to stop awarding federal contracts to MCI
WorldCom -- which committed one of the largest corporate frauds
in history.
Over a picture of two elderly and distraught
citizens, the ad screams:
"Washington should not reward corporate
criminals like MCI  WorldCom with huge new government
contracts."
The federal government announced earlier
this year that it was awarding MCI WorldCom a multimillion contract
for a wireless network in Iraq.
At the bottom of the ads, in small type,
is this:
"This ad was paid for by Gray Panthers."
In fact, the $200,000 spent by the Gray
Panthers to place the newspaper ads was raised by Issue Dynamics
Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that represents
the Baby Bells in their fight against WorldCom and that specializes
in "bridging gaps between industry and consumer groups on
public policy issues."
The ads were placed in the Washington
Post, the Washington Times, the Orlando Sentinel, Roll Call,
The Hill, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Ft. Lauderdale Sun
Sentinel, among other papers.
Over the past couple of years, Issue
Dynamics played a pivotal role in turning the National Consumers
League from a consumer group into a corporate front group. And
last year, Sam Simon, Issue Dynamics' founder and president,
was named chair of the board of the National Consumers League.
One of Issue Dynamics' major clients
is Verizon Communications, which has launched a campaign to make
sure that MCI WorldCom doesn't emerge from bankruptcy.
"MCI WorldCom committed the largest
corporate fraud in American history, causing $175 billion in
investment losses by individual shareholders and pension funds,"
the Gray Panthers ad reads. "Thousands upon thousands of
seniors had their retirements jeopardized. The U.S. government's
reaction to the MCI WorldCom fraud has been as shocking as the
crime itself."
The ad mimics the arguments in a five-page
letter written by Verizon general counsel William Barr last week
to SEC chairman William Donaldson.
In that letter, Barr charges that "the
SEC's enforcement response to WorldCom's crimes -- the largest
corporate fraud in history -- has been to date grossly inadequate
and fundamentally misdirected."
Gray Panthers is a small organization
with a staff of three and a budget of "a few hundred thousand
dollars," according to Will Thomas, director of the Panthers'
corporate accountability project. Thomas says that the Panthers
get "zero corporate funding," although he then went
on to admit that the $200,000 to place the ads in the newspapers
was raised by Issue Dynamics.
Thomas says that the Panthers have taken
corporate funds for operations in the past, including $25,000
from AT&T in 1999 and $5,000 from SBC Communications in 2001
-- but nothing since.
The Gray Panthers executive director,
Tim Fuller, defends the practice of taking corporate money to
run ads fighting corporate crime.
"I don't know the source of IDI's
budget," Fuller says. "But I have no objection to using
the enemy to bring down the enemy. Verizon may get some benefit
from this, but it also might change their behavior."
Fuller says it doesn't matter where the
money comes from, as long as the word is getting out about corporate
reform.
"I'm more interested in really bringing
change to the corporate culture," Fuller says.
But John Stauber, the executive director
of Madison, Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy, says
if that is the case, the Gray Panthers should publicly disclose
where the money came from for the ads.
"Well, if it makes no difference,
why not disclose it?" Stauber says.
"Lay all the cards on the table,
let's be transparent, let's make it clear who is footing the
bill. It is absolutely essential that there be transparency.
If so-called public interest groups or non-profit corporations
are accepting corporate money, lay it on the table."
Stauber says that Issue Dynamics "is
one of the leading players helping corporations find public interest
groups that will accept industry money and front for industry
causes."
"Every public relations firm looks
for the perfect third party experts who will carry their client's
message," he says. "If the Baby Bells came out and
ran these ads, it would look like one corporation waging war
on a competitor. The ideal public relations tactic is to find
a trusted public interest figure or organization and put the
corporate message in its mouth."
"It sounds like that's what is happening
now with the Gray Panthers," he says.
Russell Mokhiber
is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter.
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational
Monitor, and co-director of Essential Action. They are
co-authors of Corporate
Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy
(Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999.)
Today's Features
Elaine
Cassel
Bush Plays the Racial Profiling Card:
It's a Smokescreen
Brian
Cloughley
Punch-and-Judy in the West Wing:
The Powell-Rice Show
David Lindorff
What's Next?
Mark
Jacobs
A Serious Conversation: a Former Foreign Service Officer on Diplomacy
in the Age of Bush
Alfredo
Castro
Bloodbath in Colombia: The Army and the Death Squads
Saul
Landau
Lying, Flag Waving and Redefining
Conservative Values
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log, 6/19
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