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OpEdNews Op Eds    H1'ed 2/3/10

The Right Gets Itself 'Wired'

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"O'Keefe formerly worked at the Arlington-based Leadership Institute, which trains conservative leaders, and attended "10 different' institute schools, said Morton Blackwell, the institute's president. He said his organization "found' O'Keefe when O'Keefe was a student at Rutgers University."

While the Right has long demonstrated an ability to spot and develop youthful "talent" such as Dinesh D'Souza and Laura Ingraham who emerged from the racist Dartmouth Review in the 1980s the Right also has made sure that these youngsters are well rewarded financially.

In his 2002 book, Blinded by the Right, former right-wing hatchet-man David Brock recounted how his scurrilous attacks on law professor Anita Hill to discredit her testimony about Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas's gross sexual advances earned him rewards of money, status and access to power within the right-wing establishment.

Brock also described the intricate interconnections among the various groups on the Right, from the corporate and ideological moneymen down to the well-groomed propagandists who would keep a smile on their faces while savaging political adversaries.

The Growing Right

The only real difference between the world of the 1980s and 1990s, which Brock depicted in his book, and today is that the right-wing organizations and their supportive media have grown in size, wealth and sophistication.

Americans are drenched in right-wing messaging, which stresses that the enemy is Big Government, not Big Business. The anti-government propaganda seeks to make sure that no meaningful restrictions will be placed on the power of corporations to hold sway over the lives of average citizens.

With the federal government thus blocked, citizens will be left to bargain on their own for better treatment from their bosses, their banks, their credit card companies, their health-care providers, oil companies, cable TV conglomerates, etc., etc. Not surprisingly, the citizens usually get rolled.

Only a democratized and energized federal government would be powerful enough to protect citizens from the dictates of these corporate giants, which is why the Right's anti-government propaganda is so important. In essence, the Right is rallying the tea partiers, under the false flag of "populism," to serve the political interests of large corporations and the super-rich.

"Beltway organizations have had more involvement in the tea parties, long portrayed as largely organic expressions of populist anger, than most conservatives have acknowledged," the Post's Markon reported.

"The first nationwide tea parties on Feb. 27 were co-sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform, whose president, Grover Norquist, is a paragon of the D.C. conservative establishment, and the Arlington-based American Spectator.

"The Spectator's then-managing editor organized the rally near the White House that day, according to promotional materials and participants. "

"There is much crossover among leading D.C. organizations. Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council president who hosts CAP meetings, is a board member of the Council for National Policy, the organization's most recent tax filings show.

"Becky Norton Dunlop, the council's president, is a key CAP member -- and a Heritage Foundation vice president. Blackwell is a director of CNP Action, a sister organization to the Council for National Policy."

Other powerful lobbying organizations, such as former House Republican Leader Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the Koch family's oil wealth, also have worked behind the scenes to build the Tea Party movement, Markon reported.

Tea Party Rising

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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
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