Handling the USSR woulda been a relative walk in the park without the aid and comfort it received from within the USA.It's commonly believed that journalism is a public service; it's actually a necessary evil. We must scrutinize our elected officials, but journalism does it from an easily identifiable perspective. Broadcasting amplified the influence of journalism, and hence of the patent anticonservatism which inheres in journalism.
It did not take long to realize that, for all their protestations of wanting an even-handed, bilateral, verifiable freeze, their actual position was quite different. They were quite serious about a unilateral U.S. freeze, but were entirely indifferent to the Soviet's ongoing nuclear buildup and chronic cheating on existing accords. In fact, as one moved from the bumper sticker sloganeering to the details, the freeze movement's positions dovetailed in every particular with the current Soviet negotiating line, and moved in lockstep with it.
Of course, not one in a thousand of the empty headed college kids and assorted trendy lefties who turned out for the freeze campaign was informed enough, or intellectually honest enough, to realize this. Nonetheless, all I had to do was raise a question, and they would instantly volunteer the Soviet-line rebuttal. It really brought home to me the reality of what the 1930's popular fronts must have been like.
Since then, I've often wondered about the funding and real, insider leadership of such groups. Control the talking points, newsletters, and speakers list, and you control the stooges, particularly if you regularly complement them on their moral superiority, activist commitment, and independent critical thinking -- i.e., their memorization of your own talking points. Lenin's phrase, "useful idiots," is perfectly apt. This kind of organization is endemic on the left.
This is another interesting example. I sometimes think the non-profit sector should be held to the same standards of transparency we demand of the political parties. At the least, we might finally find out who Mr.-Secret-Funding Ralph Nader is pimping for.
I wonder if author Edward Immler has ever considered taking the info he has to the New York Department of Corporations and doing a reverse look up by address for these creeps to discover all the other organizations and individuals associated with them. And then taking the corporation names he learns at DOC and running these through the IRS for additional IRS Form 990's. Then using FR volunteers, assign maybe 20 names of individuals or corporations to each volunteer to do a thorough internet search. Should be able to come up with a great deal of info on these people this way. One other thing, there is a clearing house in Washington for info on all contracts let by the government. Better search there and cross reference all corporation names discovered to see if our tax dollars are funding any of their crap.
Just some thoughts.
--Boot
...Susan Lindauer said she started making visits to the Libyan Mission to the United Nations in 1995 and started meeting with Iraqis at the United Nations in 1996. The F.B.I. first began tapping Lindauer's phone and intercepting her e-mail in July 2002, she said. A year and a half earlier, Lindauer contacted Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, with letters containing what purported to be secret diplomatic communiques from the government of Iraq to the incoming Bush administration.
Lindauer reached out to Card, she explained, because he is a distant cousin on her father's side of the family. She said she believed that the fate of the world depended on the sensitive communications she dropped on the doorstep of his house in suburban Virginia.
One of Lindauer's earliest notes was left at Card's home on Dec. 23, 2000, a decade after sanctions were imposed on Iraq and a month before George W. Bush took office. Along with some of the transcripts of her wiretapped conversations, Lindauer gave me this letter to support her contention that she was working as a ''back channel'' between the governments of Iraq and the United States. The letter was addressed to Vice President-elect Cheney, and in it Lindauer presented the fruits of what she described as a private Nov. 26, 2000, meeting with Saeed Hasan, then the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations.
''Ambassador Hasan has asked me to communicate to you that Iraq most vigorously wishes to restore healthy, peaceful relations with the United States, including economic and cultural ties,'' Lindauer wrote. ''At our meeting, Ambassador Hasan demonstrated a pragmatic understanding that the United States requires the reinstatement of weapons monitoring in order to lift the sanctions.'' Ambassador Hasan, she said, had ''also emphasized that Iraq is ready to guarantee critical advantages for U.S. corporations at all levels.''
---------- "Susan Lindauer's Mission to Baghdad," by DAVID SAMUELS, New York Times Magazine, August 29, 2004
(* Lindauer made multiple visits from October 1999 through March 2002 to the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan.
Lindauer allegedly met there with several members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence arm of the government of Iraq that allegedly has played a role in several terrorist operations, including the attempted assassination of former President George H.W. Bush.
The indictment states Lindauer accepted payments from the Iraqis for her services and expenses amounting to a total of $10,000, including $5,000 she received during a trip to Baghdad in early 2002.
Lindauer is also accused of meeting twice with an undercover FBI agent who posed as a Libyan intelligence representative who was seeking to support resistance groups in postwar Iraq. Lindauer allegedly discussed the need for plans and foreign resources to support the groups. -------- "Alleged spy for Iraq gave Lockerbie deposition," By Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily.com, Friday, March 12, 2004 )