Leòmhann
Jedi Master
Rhythmik said:OK, thank you everyone for the explanations and the links. I'm watching the videos and reading the Controversy of Zion. It is very interesting. It's been difficult to unravel the truth of the situation because of my family's ties to the region. It's difficult accepting everything I've heard or been taught is basically a lie, and a country/culture that I love has stolen land and continues to murder innocent people (and probably much worse). And then the people closest to me have been brainwashed. I would have an easier time accepting it all if I had no involvement but that's my lesson.
Rhythmik hi, in a recent effort to put pieces together re: neo-conservatism, Zionism, billionaires and their corporate and organizational interests, investments, donations, and affiliations, found a thread to pull on and went with it to launch into some wave-riding research (posted below).
Emphatically, Douglas Reed's Controversy of Zion goes a long way towards understanding a great deal with regard to these topics. (Thank you so much, Laura, for mentioning this again on your FB page.
)What is unfolding for me, also, is an increasingly clearer picture of evident historical patterns involving hijackings and/or co-optings (9/11 was a good example of this in recent times) by way of injecting toxic, agent provocateur (virus-like?) types into a body of individuals (group, organization, society, population, etc) in order to steer, vector, and ultimately take it over in order to use it as a tool for further influence and resource (energy) extraction (that stomach-churning sucking sound is all over the place, imo).
For instance, we can probably safely posit that Judaism itself, already founded on myths and falsehoods, was taken over by the Khazars, and they, constituting in large part Jewish and Israeli leadership, have gone a long way toward influencing and ponerizing populations both within and outside of their religion. In fact, Laura has recently posted interesting information about this over here.
Here is the comment posted over on SOTT in reply to Eric Draitser's interesting article on HRW (Human Rights Watch), "HRW: Human Rights Watch or hypocrites representing Washington?":
Definitely Hypocrite
For all the dot connectors out there:
Human Rights Watch
"Following lobbying by UN Watch, a zionist pressure group, HRW [Human Rights Watch] removed Prof. Richard Falk from one of it human rights committees. The founders of HRW were staunchly pro-Israel, and over time they have intervened to temper critical reports about Israeli actions. Falk, a prominent international jurist and profesor at Princeton, was a vocal critic of Israel."
"Watch Human Rights Watch – A Tribute to Prof Richard Falk" | Saturday, December 22, 2012 9:03PM | Gilad Atzmon:
"On the other hand, George Soros’ Open Society Foundation contributed $100 million to HRW just to silence ethically and aesthetically driven souls such as Prof’ Falk and others."
John J. Studzinski:
"John Studzinski CBE runs Blackstone Advisory Partners and is a senior managing director of The Blackstone Group. He is a member of the firm's executive committee. He joined Blackstone in 2006."
[...]
"Mr. Studzinski is vice chair of Human Rights Watch and serves on the Board of Directors of Bowdoin College, FAPE, the Passage Day Centre, American Patrons of Tate, the Royal Parks Foundation and the Royal College of Art. He is president of the American Friends of the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry and serves as chairman of the Benjamin Franklin House Museum and CREATE. He is also a member of the Atlantic Council, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Peterson Institute."
Peterson Institute for International Economics:
Peter G. Peterson, Chairman
Alan J. Greenspan, Honorary Director
Lady de Rothschild, Trustee
Lynn Forester de Rothschild:
"Lady de Rothschild is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (USA), Chatham House (UK) and the Foreign Policy Association."
"Rothschilds Storm Into Online Weather Business – But Is It Really Six Times More Precise?":
"The turbulence began last week. That's when Weather Central LP — best known as a supplier of weather-related data to local TV stations and now majority-owned by Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild and his wife Lynn Forester de Rothschild, of the famous European banking family, formally launched a new online product, MyWeather.com."
Peter G. Peterson:
"Move over, George Soros and the Koch brothers. The Los Angeles Times has dubbed Peterson "the most influential billionaire business figure in national politics. . . . He isn't content merely to express concern about the federal deficit. His particular targets are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which he calls 'entitlement' programs and which he wants to cut back in a manner that would strike deeply at the middle class.
[...]
"Peterson co-founded the private equity firm Blackstone Group with Steven Schwarzman in 1985.
[...]
Like Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street, Blackstone was also adept at leveraged buy-outs. As Matt Taibbi documented in Rolling Stone, private equity firms too frequently buy firms to loot them. After a leveraged buy-out, they can leave companies so loaded up with debt that they are often forced to start slashing their workforce or employees' retirement security right away."
The Blackstone Group:
"The Blackstone Group is a private investment banking firm and describes itself as a "leading global investment and advisory firm." The Blackstone Group was founded in 1985 by a group of four, including Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman.
The Blackstone Group has ties to American International Group, Inc. (AIG) and Kissinger Associates, Inc./Henry Kissinger."
Stephen A. Schwarzman:
"Schwarzman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He serves on numerous boards, including the New York Public Library, the New York City Ballet, Harvard Business School Visiting Committee, the JP Morgan Chase National Advisory Board, and the New York City Partnership."
UN Watch:
"UN Watch, a Geneva-based group, was founded in 1993 to monitor the performance of the United Nations and with a stated mission of promoting human rights, but with an prime emphasis on the coverage of Israeli violations of human rights. It is an accredited non-governmental organization with the UN ECOSOC and has affiliate status with the UN DPI.
It has been founded and funded by the American Jewish Committee since 2001."
American Jewish Committee (AJC):
"Jeffrey Blankfort, a long time critic of the Israel Lobby, reports that three organizations are responsible for influencing the political scene primarily in the United States. AIPAC, AJC and the ADL work respectively on (a) influencing Congress, the (b) foreign policy establishment and (c) monitoring local critics (including spying). AJC operates as the "State Department" of the lobby, focusing on influencing foreign leaders and their organizations.
[...]
While AIPAC is usually touted to be the main pro-Israeli lobby, or "The Lobby", in reality this is an erroneous appreciation of the organization. AIPAC's role is mostly related to influencing the U.S. political scene, but other organizations, e.g., AJC do the same. Some of their activities overlap, and on occasion the responsibilities are shifted from one to the other. For example, when AIPAC became notorious due to the spying scandals some of its functions were passed to the other organizations to allay public attention."
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC):
"The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a national membership based group which describes itself as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," and is frequently referred to as "The Lobby" with a capital "L".
AIPAC was established in 1963 by Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen, Isadore Breslau and Joseph Ottenstein amidst rising anti-Semitic sentiment in African American groups, notably the Nation of Islam. During this period, Pan-Arabism gained clout in the Middle East and resulted in the growth of anti-Semitism in the region.
[...]
Its founder, Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen originally worked for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later a lobbying group within the American Zionist Council. The Kennedy Department of Justice ordered the AZC to register as an Israeli foreign agent on November 21, 1963. Kenen formed the AIPAC to avoid Foreign Agents Registration Act public registration requirements. In his book describing the history of AIPAC, Kenen wrote that AIPAC's Executive Committee decided to change their name from American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs to American Israel Public Affairs Committee "to enlarge constituency and support".
"The AZC's internal "Information and Public Relations Department" reports":
"Between 1962-1963 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee subpoenaed internal reports of the American Zionist Council during its investigation into the activities of registered agents of foreign principals. They discovered that more than $5 million in tax exempt (and possibly overseas donations) had been laundered through the Jewish Agency's American Section into the American Zionist Council. The Jewish Agency functioned as a quasi-branch of the Israeli government, received Israeli government funding, and was able to review legislation before it went to the Knesset under its Covenant Agreement.
This violated IRS regulations on the use of tax exempt charitable funds and the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act.
[...]
On May 19, 1970, the Dow Jones Observer reported, "In 1963 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigated the Jewish Agency and uncovered a 'conduit' operation run by an organization called the American Zionist Council. Over an eight-year period, this council received more than $5,000,000 from the Jewish Agency to create favorable public opinion in this country for Israeli government policies. The Senate investigation closed down the conduit, but the extensive propaganda activities still go on."
"The Mossad Has Long Given Marching Orders to AIPAC" | Grant Smith | 28 Feb 2012:
"AIPAC continues to function more as an arm of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mossad than a legitimate charity. Evidence of the Israeli government directing AIPAC today is self-evident as Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu crank AIPAC’s handles to winch themselves uninvited into U.S. election-year politics."
Anti Defamation League (ADL):
"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was founded in 1913. It describes itself as "the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry."
[...]
Espionage:
Robert I. Friedman wrote in 1993:
The ADL was established in New York City in 1913 to defend Jews, and later other minority groups, from discrimination. It led the fight against racist and fascist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, and in the 1960s championed the civil rights movement.
But there was also a darker side. In the late 1940s, the ADL spied on leftists and Communists, and shared investigative files with the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the FBI. The ADL swung sharply to the right during the Reagan administration, becoming a bastion of neo-conservatism.
[...]
ADL's espionage activities included inserting agent provocateurs/spies in targeted organizations, planting materials to tarnish the reputation of targeted organizations, maintaining large databases, spying on activists, and breaking and entering to steal computers."
Open Society Institute (George Soros):
"The goal of the Agency (CIA) was exactly the same as that of the Open Society Fund: to dismantle socialism. In South Africa, the CIA sought out dissidents who were anticommunist. In Hungary, Poland and the USSR, the CIA, with overt intervention from the National Endowment for Democracy, the AFL-CIO, USAID and other institutions, supported and organized anticommunists, the very type of individuals recruited by Soros' Open Society Fund. The CIA would have called them "assets." As Soros said, "In each country I identified a group of people - some leading personalities, others less well known - who share my belief..." Soros' Open Society organized conferences with anticommunist Czechs, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians, Croatians, Bosnians, Kosovars. His ever-expanding influence gave rise to suspicions that he was operating as part of the U.S. intelligence complex. In 1989, the Washington Post reported charges first made in 1987 by the Chinese government officials that Soros' Fund for the Reform and Opening of China had CIA connections."
Neo-conservative:
"The early leaders of the neoconservative movement were Irving Kristol (author of 1983 book Reflections of a Neoconservative) and Norman Podhoretz, both of whom have served as editors of Commentary Magazine, the flagship publication of the American Jewish Committee, a centrist American-Jewish organization. On its webpage Commentary boasts it is known "as the intellectual home of the neoconservative movement" which is "vitally engaged in the preservation and spread of democracy and Western values." [4]
Other magazines include the Weekly Standard, currently edited by William Kristol and owned by Rupert Murdoch. The editorial page of Wall Street Journal can generally be relied upon to promote solidly neoconservative analysis. Irving Kristol also founded The National Interest, a journal vying to compete with Foreign Affairs.
Important neo-conservatives in American politics include Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, William Kristol (son of Irving Kristol), Elliott Abrams (son-in-law to Norman Podhoretz) and Douglas Jay Feith.
Think tanks and organizations closely related to the neo-conservatives include American Enterprise Institute, Project for the New American Century and JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs)."
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA):
"The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) non-profit group which describes its role as "explaining the need for a prudent national security policy for the United States, addressing the security requirements of both the United States and the State of Israel, and strengthening the strategic cooperation relationship" between the two countries.
[...]
Critics have alleged, in part, that JINSA, perhaps in association with Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy is part of a cooperative initiative to influence governmental affairs in Washington in a manner favorable to Israel's interests"
See also... "The Men From JINSA and CSP" and "Israeli Proxy Forces"
Israeli Proxy Forces:
"In a 1996 report prepared by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies' "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000", the main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated.
The report, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on strategy; specifically
"establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces." These are, by another view, the Christian SLA, a body long involved in a civil war with Palestinian militants in Lebanon.
[...]
In October 2003, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad generated considerable consternation with a speech which contained the statement :"Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." [1] It should be noted that he did not say "Israeli proxy forces", and it should not be immediately inferred that he was speaking about the same published term noted above.
The statement drew immediate criticism from Israel, the United States and other countries, and raised fears that it could fan violence against Jews. But it got a standing ovation from the kings, presidents, sheiks and emirs -- including key U.S. allies -- gathered in Malaysia's capital, Putrajaya.
..."Are we not allowed at all to criticize the Jews if they do things which are wrong?" Mahathir asked. "If Muslims can be accused of being terrorists, then others can accuse the Jews of being terrorists also."
See also... "Today the Jews rule the world by proxy.
Jews invented socialism, communism, human rights and
democracy' to avoid persecution and gain control of the
most powerful countries.
They get others to fight and die for them." - Malaysia Leader Says 'Jews Rule the World'" | AP, October 16, 2003
Paul E. Singer:
"Singer is a member of the Board of Trustees of the neo-conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; a "member of the boards of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and of Commentary Magazine, and is on the Board of Advisors of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University", and a member of the Board of Fellows of Harvard Medical School.
Recipients of Singer's contributions "include Progress for America ($1.5 million in contributions), a political advocacy group set up to advance the policies of the Bush administration; Swift Vets and P.O.W.’s for Truth; and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which includes Vice President Dick Cheney and Richard N. Perle, an adviser to the former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, among its past and current advisory directors.
[...]
Debt Manipulation
Investigative Journalist Greg Palast uncovered debt manipulation by Singer, who he deems "Vulture Singer." Palast writes that Singer's "modus operandi" is to find some forgotten tiny debt owed by a very poor nation (Peru and Congo are given as examples). Singer then waits for the US and European taxpayers to forgive the poor nations' debts; as well as offers of food aid, medicine and investment loans. At this point Singer grabs at every resource and all the money going to the desperate country. Palast writes that trade stops, funds freeze and an entire economy is effectively held hostage. Singer then demands aid-giving nations pay monstrous ransoms to let trade resume. Singer demanded $400 million dollars from the Congo for a debt he picked up for less than $10 million. Palast writes that if Singer doesn't get his 4,000% profit, he can effectively starve the nation. In Congo-Brazzaville last year, one-fourth of all deaths of children under five were caused by malnutrition.
Connections to Koch
Singer was acknowledged at the privately held Koch seminar in June 2011 in Vail, Colorado for donating at least $1 million to Koch-related causes."
See also... "The Vulture: Chewing Argentina’s Living Corpse" | Greg Palast | Thursday, 31 July 2014 ... and, interestingly enough, this recent news article on Singer's concerns over catastrophic EMP blasts: "
‘Catastrophic’: Hedge Fund Billionaire Paul Singer Warns of EMP" | Aaron Dykes | 30 July 2014
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research:
"The Manhattan Institute concerns itself with such things as 'welfare reform' (dismantling social programs), 'faith-based initiatives' (blurring the distinction between church and state), and 'education reform' (destroying public education)," Kurt Nimmo wrote October 10, 2002, in CounterPunch.
[...]
Ties to the Koch Brothers
The Manhattan Institute has received funding from the Koch brothers. The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations, reported giving $2,075,000 to the Manhattan Institute between 2001 and 2012, the last year for which data is available. The Charles G. Koch Foundation gave $100,000 to the Institute in 2012.
[...]
Financiers of Neo-conservatism
The "financing of neo-conservatism doesn't come from D.C.", Mark Gerson is quoted as saying in the April 27, 2003, New York Observer. "Instead, said Mr. Gerson, it comes from New York moneymen like Bruce Kovner, chairman of the Caxton Corporation, and Roger Hertog, the vice chairman of Alliance Capital Management. Last year, both financiers helped fund a new newspaper, The New York Sun, now fighting its anti-liberal battle with its New York Times –counterprogrammed slogan, 'A Different Point of View.' Both Mr. Kovner and Mr. Hertog also chipped in to join neo-liberal Martin Peretz as co-owners of The New Republic. Mr. Kovner and Mr. Hertog, as enlightened neoconservative businessmen-intellectuals, are also on the board [of trustees] of the Manhattan Institute, where Mr. Gerson and William Kristol are also trustees, as well as the Washington, D.C.–based American Enterprise Institute."
War on Terrorism: "Axis of Evil"
In 2001, David Frum left the Manhattan Institute "to join the Bush administration as a speechwriter. It was there that he coined the term "axis of evil" to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea. This became the signature phrase of President George W. Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech and shorthand for Bush's war on terrorism."
Koch Network:
"Since at least 2006, the Koch brothers have hosted semi-annual meetings for wealthy right-wing donors, sometimes referred to as the Koch network. While these gatherings are carefully guarded, occasional leaked documents and recordings have revealed that they include "titans of industry — from health insurance companies, oil executives, Wall Street investors, and real estate tycoons — working together with conservative journalists and Republican operatives," as well as prominent public officials, including members of Congress, state governors, and even Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. The meetings involve fundraising, reportedly in the millions of dollars, as well as discussions about political strategy."
See also...
"Covert Operations" | Jane Mayer | 30 August 2010:
"In April, 2009, Melissa Cohlmia, a company spokesperson, denied that the Kochs had direct links to the Tea Party, saying that Americans for Prosperity is “an independent organization and Koch companies do not in any way direct their activities.” Later, she issued a statement: “No funding has been provided by Koch companies, the Koch foundations, or Charles Koch or David Koch specifically to support the tea parties.” David Koch told New York, “I’ve never been to a tea-party event. No one representing the tea party has ever even approached me.”
At the lectern in Austin, however, Venable—a longtime political operative who draws a salary from Americans for Prosperity, and who has worked for Koch-funded political groups since 1994—spoke less warily. “We love what the Tea Parties are doing, because that’s how we’re going to take back America!” she declared, as the crowd cheered. In a subsequent interview, she described herself as an early member of the movement, joking, “I was part of the Tea Party before it was cool!” She explained that the role of Americans for Prosperity was to help “educate” Tea Party activists on policy details, and to give them “next-step training” after their rallies, so that their political energy could be channeled “more effectively.” And she noted that Americans for Prosperity had provided Tea Party activists with lists of elected officials to target. She said of the Kochs, “They’re certainly our people. David’s the chairman of our board. I’ve certainly met with them, and I’m very appreciative of what they do.”"
and...
"The Koch Brothers Left a Confidential Document at Their Donor Conference":
"There's one main rule at the conservative donor conclaves held twice a year by Charles and David Koch at luxury resorts: What happens there stays there.
The billionaire industrialists and their political operatives strive to ensure the anonymity of the wealthy conservatives who fund their sprawling political operation—which funneled more than $400 million into the 2012 elections—and to keep their plans private. Attendees of these summits are warned that the seminars, where the Kochs and their allies hatch strategies for electing Republicans and advancing conservative initiatives on the state and national levels, are strictly confidential; they are cautioned to keep a close eye on their meeting notes and materials. But last week, following the Kochs' first donor gathering of 2014, one attendee left behind a sensitive document at the Renaissance Esmeralda resort outside of Palm Springs, California, where the Kochs and their comrades had spent three days focused on winning the 2014 midterm elections and more. The document lists VIP donors—including John Schnatter, the founder of the Papa John's pizza chain—who were scheduled for one-on-one meetings with representatives of the political, corporate, and philanthropic wings of Kochworld. The one-page document, provided to Mother Jones by a hotel guest who discovered it, offers a fascinating glimpse into the Kochs' political machine and shows how closely intertwined it is with Koch Industries, their $115 billion conglomerate."
and...
"The Kochs’ Anti-Civil Rights Roots: New Docs Expose Charles Koch’s Ties to John Birch Society" | Amy Goodman Interview with Lisa Graves | 8 July 2014:
"The Progressive magazine and Center for Media and Democracy have released new documents that show billionaire oil industrialist Charles Koch was an active member of the controversial right-wing John Birch Society during its campaigns against the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Charles Koch was following in the footsteps of his father, Fred Koch, a leader of the John Birch Society from its founding. We speak with The Progressive’s Lisa Graves about her new article, "The Koch Cartel: Their Reach, Their Reactionary Agenda, and Their Record." Graves details how the reactionary ideas absorbed during Charles Koch’s youth continue to animate many of his actions decades later."
"The ‘Israel Lobby’ Controversy - Elite Factionalism or Elite Conspiracy Theory?" | "Author’s Note: This is an extended and slightly revised version of an article which originally appeared in PARANOIA (issue 44) Spring 2007.":
"The Fight Continues
If we pursue this notion of elite factionalism, we might note the consistency of the links among those who have taken issue with the Israel Lobby. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, for example, not only described the neo-cons as "fucking crazies" (quoted in The Accidental American, p.127), but repeatedly suggested their first loyalty was to Israel. He reportedly referred to most of Rumsfeld’s team as the "JINSA crowd" (LA Times, 9 Oct. 2006), and in his exit interview with Bush described Feith as a "card carrying member of the Likud Party" (Packer 445). Powell, no doubt by mere coincidence, is on record publicly thanking the Lobby’s other antagonist, David Rockefeller, for being his "great mentor."
Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell’s chief of staff at the State Department, and, since his own retirement, an outspoken critic of the "cabal" around Cheney, has lauded Mearsheimer and Walt’s thesis as containing "blinding flashes of the obvious." Wilkerson has reportedly assigned the paper to his students at George Washington University and the College of William and Mary "for discussion" (Amos 2006).
Other odd coincidences and connections also emerge. Lieven and Lind, after coming under sustained criticism for their attacks on the Lobby, both found refuge at the New American Foundation. The mission of the NAF, which was founded in January 1999, and describes itself as an "independent, non-partisan, non-profit public policy institute," is to invest in "outstanding individuals and policy ideas that transcend the conventional political spectrum." Lind is currently the Whitehead Senior Fellow at the NAF. Whitehead being former Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, who counts Rockefeller as one of his "old friends" (Whitehead, p.7)—and who has also been publicly lauded as a "friend" by both Powell and his former deputy, Richard Armitage—is the largest individual donor to the NAF, as well as a public critic of the Bush Administration’s policies in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Whitehead also marked himself as an opponent of the Israel Lobby/neo-conservative consensus with his public and private attacks on John Bolton, back in 2004 when Bush nominated him to be Ambassador to the UN. Bolton, a former Senior Vice President at the AEI, received enthusiastic support from AEI, JINSA and the Zionist Organization of America. In addition to the controversial efforts of Powell and Armitage, Whitehead personally lobbied Senators to reject Bolton’s nomination.
[...]
Whether the invasion of Iraq was for oil, Israel, or even world government (a contention doggedly advocated by the John Birch Society) will no doubt occupy the minds of various researchers for decades to come. But what should be clear is that in taking issue with the workings of various elite groups, we should not privilege one over the other as targets of our disdain, but recognize that the assault on democracy takes many forms and comes from many quarters and is always at the expense of the powerless."
With respect to the above paragraph, the assault is launched by psychopaths in power against the mass populations ... please see the topic of Political Ponerology [Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski; "Political Ponerology: A Science of Evil Applied for Political Purposes"], for more on this subject...
New America Foundation:
"The New America Foundation is a Washington D.C.-headquartered think tank which states that it "invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States ... With an emphasis on big ideas, impartial analysis and pragmatic solutions, New America invests in outstanding individuals whose ability to communicate to wide and influential audiences can change the country's policy discourse in critical areas, bringing promising new ideas and debates to the fore."
The foundation, which was launched in 1999, has as its CEO Steve Coll, a staff writer with The New Yorker magazine while the chairman of the Board of Directors is the Chairman & CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt.
[...]
The New America Foundation receives funding from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
[...]
Top Donors:
Open Society Institute (George Soros)
Peter G. Peterson Foundation
U.S. Department of State
Board of Directors:
Eric Schmidt (Google), Chair
Jonathan Soros
Walter Russell Mead (Council on Foreign Relations; United Against Nuclear Iran)
"Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (LHBF)":
"Harry Bradley was one of the original charter members of the far right-wing John Birch Society, along with another Birch Society board member, Fred Koch, the father of Koch Industries' billionaire brothers and owners, Charles and David Koch.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “from 2001 to 2009, it [Bradley] doled out nearly as much money as the seven Koch and Scaife foundations combined.”
[...]
"According to Right Wing Watch, the Bradley Foundation has given grants to highly controversial individuals:
"Bradley has supported and in some cases, had to defend controversial right-wing recipients of their grants, particularly Charles Murray and Dinesh D'Souza.
"Charles Murray - Murray, author of "The Bell Curve," which argues that intelligence is predicated on race, and "Losing Ground," whose thesis is that social programs should be abolished. Murray's work was so controversial and objectionable that the right-wing Manhattan Institute, supported by Bradley and for which he worked, asked him to leave. However, the Bradley Foundation stood by him because Murray, according to former Bradley President Michael Joyce, "is one of the foremost social thinkers in the country." Bradley extended Murray's $100,000 per year grant when he went to the American Enterprise Institute.
"Dinesh D'Souza - D'Souza, in his book, The End of Racism, attempts to absolve Whites from discrimination against Blacks during slavery, claiming that Blacks were too uncivilized to be a part of society anyway."
Ties to DonorsTrust, a Koch Conduit
DonorsTrust is considered a "donor-advised fund," which means that it divides its funds into separate accounts for individual donors, who then recommend disbursements from the accounts to different non-profits. Funds like DonorsTrust are not uncommon in the non-profit sector, but they do cloak the identity of the original donors because the funds are typically distributed in the name of DonorsTrust rather than the original donors. Very little was known about DonorsTrust until late 2012 and early 2013, when the Guardian and others published extensive reports on what Mother Jones called "the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement."
[...]
Among other things, Bradley has focused its funding efforts on programs to divert tax dollars from public schools to private entities via "voucher" programs that undermine public education. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bradley poured $20 million into the effort to bring so-called "school choice" vouchers to Milwaukee, and has spent countless sums supporting groups that aim to expand the program across Wisconsin. These anti-public education initiatives are also advanced by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
[...]
About ALEC
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills.
[...]
Funding Islamophobia in the United States
Research from the Center for American Progress (CAP) indicates that LHBF has funded various organizations and individuals contributing to an anti-Islamic hysteria in the United States. Between 2001 and 2009, LHBF has contributed $5,370,000 to various Islamophobic groups, including the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the David Horowitz Freedom Center."
"Neocon influence in the US media":
"The number of neocon dominated/controlled journals and program outlets has steadily increased ever since the introduction of Commentary. Eric Alterman lists the following outlets according to their degree of neoconnery [7]:
Commentary
The Weekly Standard
Most of National Review
Half The New Republic
City Journal
The New Criterion
The Washington Times
Insight
The New York Post
The New York Sun
The editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal
60 or so percent of the Washington Post op-ed page
A twice-a-week appearance on the New York Times op-ed page
All of Fox News
Much of MSNBC
A bit of CNN
More and more of PBS
The American Enterprise Institute
The Heritage Foundation
The Hoover Institution
The Project for the New American Century
The US National Security Council
The Department of Defense
Parts of the World Bank and the United Nations Ambassador's office
A healthy chunk of the State Department
The Vice-President's office 2000-2008
And an unknown percentage of what is politely referred to as “the president's mind” GWB
Although not listed in Alterman's list, The Atlantic Monthly also registers increasingly as a neocon-dominated periodical.
In Canada, neocon-dominated news outlets include:
Western Standard
The National Post
Increasingly, since Kenneth Whyte, the former editor of the right-wing and now-defunct Alberta Report' and former editor-in-chief of the National Post and the now defunct weekly magazine Saturday Night, took over as editor-in-chief and publisher of Canada's only weekly news magazine in 2005, MacLeans has also taken on a slick neoconservative bias."
and then, as if all this weren't enough, there's this...
"Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism" | Max Blumenthal | August 8, 2006:
" Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is "a biblical imperative." CUFI's Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah.
The White House instructed Brog not to reveal the names of officials he met with, Brog said.
CUFI's advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee. Hagee is a fire-and-brimstone preacher from San Antonio who commands the nearly 18,000-member Cornerstone Church and hosts a major TV ministry where he explains to millions of viewers how the end times will unfold. He is also the author of numerous bestselling pulp-prophecy books, like his recent Jerusalem Countdown, in which he cites various unnamed Israeli intelligence sources to claim that Iran is producing nuclear "suitcase bombs." The only way to defeat the Iranian evildoers, he says, is a full-scale military assault.
"The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty," Hagee wrote this year in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. "Israel and America must confront Iran's nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide."
and this...
"Christians United for Israel: New Christian Zionism Lobby Hopes to Rival AIPAC" | Tuesday, 15 August 2006:
"MAX BLUMENTHAL: Christian Zionism has been a force within the Christian right for over 20 years, and they’ve made — the Christian Zionist movement, they’ve made themselves an asset to Israel by sending millions in aid money to Israel. They’re a major source of Israeli tourism, especially during the Second Intifada. They were perhaps the only source of tourism revenue for Israel, which is a key source of revenue for the Israeli government. And on an individual basis, leaders of the Christian Zionist movement have lobbied the government, especially the Bush administration, which has had an open door policy to them. But never before has there been an official Washington lobbying organization for the Christian Zionist movement.
So now you have Christians United for Israel, which was founded in February by John Hagee, who commands a mega-church in San Antonio with 18,000 members. He’s a huge force in Texas politics, a close, personal friend of Tom DeLay. And what this organization has done is they’ve convened all of the major Christian Zionist mega-churches in the country under one umbrella group, and they’ve hired a lobbyist. Hagee has a lot of money through his congregation. And their lobbyist is a guy named David Brog, who’s the former chief of staff to Arlen Specter, and he’s Jewish, so this makes him a huge asset to this organization, because he can beat back criticism from other Jewish leaders that Christian Zionists harbor ulterior motives for supporting Israel, that they have an Armageddon-based agenda for supporting Israel.
And if you look at what John Hagee has written in his books, like Jerusalem Countdown, his most recent book, which cites 17 unnamed Israeli intelligence sources to claim that Iran is producing nuclear suitcase bombs and that Israel must engage in a "nuclear showdown" with Iran or risk committing national suicide, if you look at what he’s written, he does have an Armageddon-based agenda. And so I think what this lobby does, it plays an instrumental PR role on behalf of the Christian Zionist movement in preventing legitimate criticism of their motives for supporting Israel, and they are bolstering what AIPAC is doing and possibly even radicalizing what AIPAC is doing, by providing them a grassroots base in the heartland.
The majority of America’s 60 million evangelicals are premillenial dispensationalists. They believe that the end times could come at any moment, and they’re looking for signs of that, so they’re sympathetic to supporting Israel for these reasons. And so they provide a strong grassroots base. This is the Republican base. This is the only component of the Republican base that still supports Bush’s policies in Iraq without question, unconditionally, and supports Israel’s expansionism. While the American Jewish community is willing to, you know, stand for Israel and show solidarity for Israel, they also support a peace process, and they support a sovereign Palestinian state. But this group doesn’t.
[...]
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, we know in the past that Karl Rove and people in Karl Rove’s shop, like Tim Goeglein and Elliott Abrams, who’s in the State Department, who’s traveling, you know, to Israel with Condoleezza Rice, have met with Christian Zionist groups, so this is not an anomaly. But this group has a much larger voice than any of the other groups that have met with the Bush administration, and they claim — David Brog claimed to me that their principal achievement has been keeping a ceasefire off the table for the past month. So, their principal achievement has been essentially giving Israel a free hand and the IDF a free hand to kind of, you know, ramp up the war, and I think this has had catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and the peace process.
I’m not discounting the influence of AIPAC. I’m not saying that Christians United has anywhere near the influence of AIPAC, but in a Republican-dominated Washington, Christians United represents where the Republican base is at, and that’s why you have Sam Brownback going to their banquet. That’s why Ken Mehlman, the head of the RNC, spoke at their banquet.
[...]
Last year, Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman, the president of the largest American Jewish organization, kind of came out of nowhere and gave a speech attacking the Christian right as the greatest threat to American Jewish interests, to constitutional rights of American Jews. I think it was something that had been, you know, that a lot of American Jews had wanted him to do for a long time. ADL has principally focused in the past on supporting Israel and supporting Israel no matter what Israel does. And they’ve also had alliances. Abe Foxman has had alliances with people like Ralph Reed over Israel. He paid to reprint a Ralph Reed editorial supposedly supporting Israel in a full page of the New York Times in the late ’90s. So this represented a break from the past.
And Abe Foxman was immediately attacked by a chorus of Christian right criticism, including David Brog. David Brog was one of the first people to attack him, and he attacked him, of course, from a Jewish perspective, saying, you know, "Evangelicals saved Jews from the Holocaust. We owe them a lot. And they support Israel now." In the Wall Street Journal in an op-ed, in the most influential op-ed section for the conservative movement, he was joined by most evangelical leaders in attacking Foxman, and every single one held Israel over Abe Foxman’s head and said, "If you continue to criticize us, we will withdraw support for Israel." So it just shows that their support for Israel, or their purported support for Israel, is completely conditional, and that they’re using it to weaken the interests of American Jews domestically.
And since then, Abe Foxman has been pretty much silent, although he sends fundraising pitches out warning of the Christian right’s machinations. He doesn’t speak about it publicly anymore. And on Friday or Monday, the ADL ran these two, I thought, really ridiculous full-page ads in the New York Times saying, "Hezbollah must be stopped." Well, the ceasefire had already happened, so they had been stopped. So I thought that was a complete waste of their money. And there’s just a void right now in the Jewish community for saying that the Christian right is a threat."
If anything, since HRW is in bed with the very individuals, corporations, and organizations connected with the perpetrators of the mass genocide against the innocent victims in Palestine, aren't they, themselves, guilty of human rights violations?
And, as for the ADL, you can find out more about this gestapo-like organization and the role it plays in the Zionist movement here.
