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JFK and the Moon Race

JFK and the Unspeakable
includes audio files

DOTS TO CONNECT:

• Peak Oil
• Climate Change
• 9/11
• World War IV
• Media
• Homeland Security
• Fake Elections

RELATED WEBSITES:

Global Permaculture.org
Permatopia.com

Norman Solomon
FAIR / Institute for Public Accuracy

last updated: May 9, 2008

Norman Solomon is director of the Institute for Public Accuracy:

http://accuracy.org/aboutus.php

Funders of the Institute for Public Accuracy include:

• Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program
• Ford Foundation
• Park Foundation
• Bydale Foundation
• Stewart Mott Charitable Trust
• CarEth Foundation
• Rockefeller Brothers Fund
• Streisand Foundation
• Arca Foundation
• Wallace Global Fund
• The Lee & Gund Foundation

 

If the IPA talked about Peak Oil in detail they might have a harder time getting funded by Ford and Rockefeller.

A few months ago, when Mr. Solomon was in Eugene to preach to the choir, he was asked after his presentation to talk about the core issue of Peak Oil in relation to the War on Iraq. His reply was to ask the questioner if he knew this writer (Mark Robinowitz) but did not provide a substantive answer, according to the questioner.

If Senator Obama is allowed to become the next Emperor it is unlikely that foundation funded "peace activists" will demand accountability for the politician that they supported. An honest examination would point out that Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama's foreign policy advisor, helped set the stage for the War on Iraq through creation of the Rapid Deployment Force, which is now called Central Command (CENTCOM), the military command that has shattered Iraq. Brzezinski predicted in his 1997 book that the next war (ie. the current situation) would be to control Asian energy resources, concluding that

"as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."
-- "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives," by Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997), Council on Foreign Relations, National Security Adviser to President Carter and adviser to Presidents Reagan and Bush the First

and a commentary published a month after 9/11 (which Norman Solomon attacked as "not credible")

www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/zbig.html
A War in the Planning for Four Years - HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?
Zbigniew Brzezinski and the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] Put War Plans In a 1997 Book - It Is "A Blueprint for World Dictatorship," Says a Former German Defense and NATO Official Who Warned of Global Domination in 1984, in an Exclusive Interview With FTW
by Michael C. Ruppert

The "Institute for Public Accuracy" (sic) which Mr. Solomon runs does not seem interested in Peak Oil, the reason for the War on Iraq.

A search for "peak oil" at the IPA website (accuracy.org) found only one mention in all of their many years of weekly press releases (and it was buried deep in the press release, not the topic of the release). None of the leading experts on Peak Oil can be found using their search engine - "accuracy.org" does not mention of Richard Heinberg, Julian Darley, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, Post Carbon Institute, James Howard Kunstler, Colin Campbell, Ken Deffeyes, et al. Of course, this censorship of the obvious is shared by most of the foundation funded liberal "alternative" media, it is the "alternative" form of "pack journalism."

You would think that given the fact we have reached Peak Oil they might have a tiny interest in promoting someone who has a liberal / progressive / environmental / social justice oriented perspective on Peak Oil. It would be interesting to ask the IPA why they ignore this in their media outreach work. You can read more about Peak Oil in the mainstream media than in most of the so-called alternative media, although neither flavor of media talks about how Peak Oil is the real motivation for the seizure of the Iraqi oil fields.

It's understandable that the IPA attacked journalists who dared to point out that 9/11 was deliberately allowed to happen, since the implication of this inconvenient truth is too scary to acknowledge for most people (although the motive for allowing 9/11 was primarily Peak Oil). However, Peak Oil has more tolerance in the media as a topic that is not forbidden (as long as you don't point out that it was Cheney's real motivation for attacking Iraq). Even National Geographic ran a cover story on this (May 2004) that was excellent, although it didn't talk about the deeper politics involved.

http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1264&type=&searchterms=peak%20oil
News Release
Rising Oil Prices: Two Perspectives - April 19, 2006

A press release last week on the issue of gas prices completely ignored peak oil:

http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1704
Press Release from Norman Solomon dated May 1, 2008 about "gas prices"
no mention (or even hint) about peak oil as a factor in rising gas prices
what will the liberals do if the D's take over the White Man's House and the price of gasoline continues to rise?
probably just what they have done with the D's taking over the Congress and still the war funding continues - they will do nothing.

As always, I hope to be wrong in my cynicism and that the IPA will explain why they haven't covered the story - and will make amends by urging their media lists to interview Peak Oil experts.

a previous message about IPA's attack on pointing out the excuse for the War on Iraq:

IPA is run by Norman Solomon, a long time liberal analyst and activist. He was at the core of a coordinated effort of alternative liberal media to discredit Ruppert's work (and by extension, all those who are 911 skeptics).

An October 2003 Oregon Peace Worker editorial by Solomon was very shrewd disinformation. He pointed out (accurately) how Bush used 9/11 to promote various nefarious agendas, while carefully excising any hint that 9/11 might have been allowed to happen in order to ensure those agendas (which there is tremendous amount of evidence for). It's a classic case of carefully constructing the realms of "reasonable dissent" that obfuscates as much as it enlightens.

"Left" commentator and peace advocate Norman Solomon, who traveled to Iraq with a conservative Democrat on an official State Department sanctioned trip, hasn't been persecuted like the peace activists who went to Iraq just before the war without State Department permission. Perhaps it was a reward for his participation in the campaign by "left gatekeepers" to attack journalists and advocates who questioned Bush's statements about 9/11.

U.S. TO PERSECUTE PEACE ACTIVISTS (but not those who supported Bush's view on 9/11 at a critical time)
www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,1017347,00.html

SUZANNE GOLDENBERG, GUARDIAN - Anti-war activists who visited Iraq before the US invasion have discovered that they could face up to 12 years in prison and $1m in fines. Although travel firms now tout adventure tours to a country that is a temporary home to 150,000 US troops, scores of American protesters have been warned they risk fines or imprisonment for violating a prewar travel ban. During the past few weeks a retired schoolteacher in her 60s and a number of other activists have received warnings from the US treasury that they could face punishment for traveling to Iraq

Most of our critics, notably David Corn of The Nation and self-anointed media critic Norman Solomon, have gone silent as both our reporting and predictions have been completely validated by events. And both Corn and Solomon have also revealed themselves to be agents of the U.S. State Department run by Colin Powell and career covert operative and criminal Richard Armitage. Last November in a story published on Alternet Corn wrote, "I had been dispatched to Trinidad by the U.S. State Department to conduct a two-day seminar on investigative reporting for local journalists (your tax dollars at work!)..." And just recently Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy traveled with sitting congressman Nick Rahall and others on what CNN described as an official delegation to meet with officials of the Iraqi government.
-- from the lead essay from the Oct. 1, 2002 issue of Mike Ruppert's newsletter From The Wilderness [emphasis added]

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Solomon is an associate with the group "FAIR," which has monitored media bias since the 1980s. FAIR's work has generally been very good, although media ownership has concentrated much more during this time. FAIR's founder, Jeff Cohen, is now communications director for the Kucinich Presidential campaign (the only candidate who supports lowering Bush's military budget).

However, on the 911 issue, FAIR is providing tacit support to the Bush administration by trying to get liberals to back away from the independent investigations. Last year, Solomon and FAIR pressured Pacifica Radio / KPFA (in Berkeley) to get them to ban Ruppert from their airwaves. In response, Pacifica journalist Kelia Ramares wrote Solomon and FAIR's Steve Rendall to say "You are leveraging your reputation in the community to commit character assassination against Ruppert, knowing it is highly unlikely anyone will call you on it."

Rendell claimed in the Boston Globe (7/10/03) that Ruppert is "circulating unsupported conspiracy theories [that] detracts from the debate."

www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/191/living/News_far_off_the_beaten_pathP.shtml
News, far off the beaten path
By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 7/10/2003
archived at www.fromthewilderness.com/ad_updates.html

... Steve Rendall, senior analyst for the liberal media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, says, ''accurate information is the oxygen of democracy, and when someone is circulating unsupported conspiracy theories, it detracts from the debate.''
Ruppert says the conspiracy-buff charge is ''intended to detract from the evidence I present. . . . If that's the only argument they can muster to me, that tells me in a war of intellects, they are basically unarmed.''
Soon, millions of newspaper readers across the country may get the chance to see what's in Ruppert's arsenal.

This exchange suggests that FAIR has some explaining to do -- why are they lying about "unsupported" lack of evidence when they won't even touch the evidence that has been exposed? Do they really want to support the official, Bush regime view, despite the flagrant evidence pointing out it is a fraud? Why are they unwilling to do their own research into 9/11 if they disagree with Michael Ruppert or other journalists investigating the stories?

FAIR has not looked at the issues surrounding the "standdown" of the Air Force. A September, 2003 article by Seth Ackerman, a contributing writer to FAIR, focused on the "intelligence failures" of 9/11 and how the Saudi hijackers were able to bypass US intelligence. He concluded that the "incompetence" theory was plausible, and "it ought to be possible to steer a middle course between wild speculation and cynical whitewash."

While it's obvious that the Saudis played a role -- they've supported US terror in Nicaragua, Lebanon and Afghanistan -- they weren't in charge of air defense over Washington and New York. Perhaps their role was similar to the Mafia in Dallas in 1963, a subcontractor who helped with some technical aspects, but they weren't in charge of the main event, nor running the coverup afterwards.

A decade and a half of pointing out how many times Henry Kissinger and other warmongers are on network TV hasn't succeeded in slowing the concentration of media ownership. Perhaps it is past time for FAIR to think clearly about the modus operandi of the empire, rather than waste time attacking those who dare to probe.

The Institute for Public Accuracy, FAIR, etc. have not done anything to reinforce the demands of relatives like Kristen Breitweiser to have a genuine investigation.

Pacifica Radio / KPFA journalist replies to Norman Solomon's attacks on Mike Ruppert

And why don't you cite us something yourself? The two of you are great at making claims about Ruppert without being specific. We have other things to do besides spending hours searching for what you regard as "significant". I might as well ask you to go to a library and find a book that's significant to me. You are leveraging your reputation in the community to commit character assassination against Ruppert, knowing it is highly unlikely anyone will call you on it. If this is so "significant" to you, cite chapter and verse. Don't expect us to chase your phantoms. ....

You wrote a hit piece, Norman. A conclusory, self-serving hit piece, pure and simple. And Steven, you are abetting the character assassination of Mike Ruppert. Pacifica is in a state of great change and you two are interested in making sure that it remains a mouthpiece for you and your brand of progressivism and political analysis in a manner that could fairly be described as "monopolistic."

-- Kelia Ramares letter to Norman Solomon and Steve Rendall of FAIR

Pacifica Radio journalist Kelia Ramares's comments on IPA's campaign against KPFA radio for daring to air Ruppert's point of view
www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg90846.html or at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ctrl/message/16521?source=1

David Zupan and the Northwest Media Project

(Zupan is an employee of Norman Solomon's Institute for Public Accuracy)

In August, 2003, the "Peace and Justice Conference Committee" engaged in a blatant act of censorship to exclude dissident voices about the "War on Terror" from the annual peace and justice conference held at the University of Oregon, organized in part by Mr. Zupan.

A majority of participants in the organizing meetings wanted Michael Ruppert as a keynote speaker, given the amazing work that he and his publication "From the Wilderness" (www.fromthewilderness.com) have done, especially since Sept 11. FTW was the first publication to link the "insider trading" scandals on United and American (the week before 9/11) back to the CIA. FTW compiled some of the most detailed knowledge regarding proof of Bush administration prior knowledge of 9/11. FTW has done some of the best work on the "stand down" of the Air Force on 9/11, the relationship of the peak of oil production to 9/11 and the "War on Terror," and has been proven correct in its predictions on numerous occasions.

At an organizers meeting on August 4, 2003 that had 12 participants, 2/3rds of those there wanted to have Ruppert speak at the conference. The two co-coordinators, David Zupan and Michael Carrigan, forbid any decision from being made that day, ostensibly because "more information" was needed. (In reality, there was plenty of information already available in terms of cost, availability, and political correctness - the latter was the real issue.) Instead, the decision was delayed again (it had dragged on for weeks) until the following week, when five participants were at the meeting, and then a decision was made to exclude Mike Ruppert from the conference (and three of those participants were paid to work on the conference). The one volunteer who voted against Ruppert's appearance said afterwards that he agreed that there was a "stand down" of the Air Force on 9/11 -- and was shocked to realize that he had just voted against bringing one of the leading experts on this, he was going solely on the unsubstantiated claims that "Ruppert isn't credible" that were uttered repeatedly as a mantra to confuse and distract.

The conference did not invite any speakers who exposed the 9/11 scandal. It did have some bland, liberal comedian commentators (Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins) who were very popular but didn't really say anything new. It was another case of preaching to the choir, but it would be difficult to find any concrete result that came from their appearance (other than their speaker fees). During the questions of Hightower, a woman asked him about the Carlyle Group (private investment firm that the Bush and Bin Ladens were partners in - a firm heavily invested in weapons) and he didn't really have any reply for her. The culture of celebrity is dominant on what's left of the "Left" -- and while it can be entertaining to see famous liberals on their 70 city book tours (in most cases, these books have precious little to say that isn't already said elsewhere), it is hard to see any tangible ways that this translates into political change.

Unfortunately, Ruppert's success brought attacks -- and the foundation funded "gatekeepers" of the liberal left zeroed in on Ruppert's work in early 2002, just as the "Bush Knew" material was getting more attention. Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public "Accuracy" (former employer of Mr Zupan) and David Corn (The Nation) were particularly aggressive in smearing Ruppert -- and by extension, anyone who dared to suggest that 9/11 was not a "surprise attack." Corn in particular has a LONG history of whitewashing official crimes under the guise of exposing them -- in particular, was a leading critic of journalists exposing the CIA / cocaine connections, connections that the CIA itself has admitted to. The Nation magazine has been perhaps the leading defender of the "Warren Commission" on the "left," so it is not surprising that they have been part of the 9/11 coverup, too.

Mr. Zupan has declined several requests for a public debate on whether peace advocates should talk about the topic of Bush's complicity in 9/11. Surely, if he is so adamant against this being discussed, he should be willing to participate in a debate with those who want to expose it. He has also declined to explain why he was so willing to denigrate Ruppert as "not credible" without having even read his material (at the first volunteers meeting where this came up, he said that Ruppert wasn't credible - and when asked by several people to justify his statement he was unable to cite any details - it was embarrassing).

We will never know if the peace movement would have been much stronger if these "left gatekeepers" had instead worked to amplify the evidence of Bush's 9/11 complicity instead of suppressing it. But it is reasonable to assume that if these facts have been much more widespread in the public consciousness Bush would have had much more difficulty in gaining political support for the invasion of Iraq -- indeed, he might have been impeached and jailed by now. Why did The Nation and Norman Solomon work so hard to muzzle this material - and why are they now silent about this?

Most Americans will be relatively indifferent to the slaughter of millions of people in distant lands. Vietnamese. Iraqis. Central Americans. But a government that allows to be killed -- or directly kills -- three thousand people in New York, almost no one in our country would tolerate this.
The failure of much of the peace movement to focus on Bush's war crimes in New York is one of the reasons why our efforts to stop the Iraq war were a failure. Yes, the demonstrations were extremely large and they were all over the world -- but that is probably not much consolation to the Iraqis or the US troops in Iraq. It is past time for a new strategy, and time for the liberal left to explain their "stand down" on the core pretext for the "war that will not end in our lifetime" (according to Dick Cheney).

The slogan "Justice Not War" as used by the "Justice Not War coalition" is an intriguing one, since it implies that "we were attacked but we want Justice not war."

www.questionsquestions.net/feldman/feldman02.html

ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP:
SPONSORED BY CIA's FORD FOUNDATION?

Part 2:

FAIR / COUNTERSPIN / INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC ACCURACY

The FAIR/COUNTERSPIN/Institute for Public Accuracy alternative media gatekeepers/censors--which includes COUNTERSPIN co-hosts/producers Steve Rendall and Janine Jackson, Institute for Public Accuracy/MAKING CONTACT executive director Norman Solomon, MSNBC/DONAHUE SHOW PRODUCER Jeff Cohen and WORKING ASSETS RADIO show producer Laura Flanders--have also been subsidized by the Ford Foundation and other Establishment foundations in recent years.

At a June 1988 street fair in Manhattan's Union Square which marked the 35th anniversary of the Rosenbergs' execution, MSNBC DONAHUE SHOW producer Jeff Cohen sat behind a table selling copies of his recently-created Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting [FAIR] group's journal, EXTRA!. Within a few years, Cohen's FAIR alternative media group was airing a weekly media watch show called COUNTERSPIN on Pacifica's WBAI station in New York City. What listeners of COUNTERSPIN were not told in the 1990s, however, was that around 30 percent of FAIR's funding was coming from foundation grants, including grants from Establishment foundations like the Rockefeller Family Fund, the MacArthur Foundation, Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

In 1991, FAIR was given a $20,000 grant from the Rockefeller Family fund "for general support." And then in 1992, annual grants to FAIR started to pour in from the MacArthur Foundation offices in Chicago. In an early 1997 interview, the program officer who was then responsible for the MacArthur Foundation's media program, Patricia Boero, told AQUARIAN/DOWNTOWN magazine: "MacArthur is funding Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. And in '96, they received $75,000 towards the cost of operations. We've been funding it since 1992, at approximately the same level. It was slightly higher a few years ago, when the media budget was a little bigger." Boero also told AQUARIAN/DOWNTOWN in 1997 that one reason the MacArthur Foundation began funding FAIR was that FAIR was already being funded by other foundations such as "the Rockefeller Family Fund."

Later in 1997, more MacArthur Foundation money was thrown in FAIR's direction by a MacArthur "genius grant" program--which was then headed by a member of both the Public Broadcasting Service [PBS] board and NATION magazine's Nation Institute Board, named Catharine Stimpson. A dancer who was the partner of one of the co-hosts/producers of FAIR's COUNTERSPIN radio show was given a $290,000 individual grant by the MacArthur Foundation program which Nation Institute and PBS board member Stimpson directed. Since 1997, FAIR has continued to receive grants from the MacArthur Foundation. In 1998 it was given an additional grant of $150,000 by the MacArthur Foundation. And in 2000, another MacArthur Foundation of $125,000 was given to FAIR.

Another Establishment foundation, Public Affairs TV Inc. Executive Director Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation also began subsidizing FAIR's alternative media work in the early 1990s. In 1995, for instance, Moyers' Schumann Foundation gave FAIR a $150,000 grant "to support promotion of book THE WAY THINGS AREN'T," which was co-authored by COUNTERSPIN co-host/producer Steve Rendall. And in 1996, an additional grant of $15,000 from the Schumann Foundation (whose president, Public Affairs TV Inc. Executive Director Bill Moyers, was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary in the 1960s) was given to FAIR. Since 1996 FAIR has continued to receive grants from Moyers' Schumann Foundation, including a post-2000 grant of between $50,000 and $100,000. In addition, one of the co-hosts/producers of FAIR's COUNTERSPIN show, Janine Jackson, sits on the board of a group, Citizens for Independent Broadcasting [CIPB]. In 2002, Moyers' Schumann Foundation gave the Center for Social Studies Education a $200,000 grant "for continued support for activities of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting [CIPB]."

The executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy [IPA]/MAKING CONTACT alternative media group, Norman Solomon, was listed on FAIR's 1997 form 990 as being the "president" of FAIR and has been a FAIR associate in recent years. Like FAIR, former FAIR President Solomon's Institute for Public Accuracy, with an annual income of $267,000, has been subsidized by Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation. In 1997, Moyers' Schumann Foundation gave a $100,000 grant to Solomon's IPA/International Media project "for effort to hold think tanks to high standards of accuracy."

In addition to being subsdiized by the Rockefeller Family Fund, the MacArthur Foundation and the Schumann Foundation in the 1990s, FAIR also began receiving grants from the Ford Foundation in the mid-1990s. As the WORKING ASSETS RADIO web site noted in 2001: "As the founder of the Women's Desk at the media watchdog FAIR [WORKING ASSETS RADIO producer-host Laura] Flanders received a $200,000 grant from the Ford Foundation for a collaborative project to combat racism and sexism in the news. The resulting book, REAL MAJORITY, MEDIA MINORITY: THE COST OF SIDELINING WOMEN IN REPORTING, was published to rave reviews by Common Courage Press in 1997." Besides the Ford Foundation's $200,000 grant to FAIR in 1996 or 1997 to help subsidize the alternative media work of its Women's Desk, an additional grant of $150,000 from the Ford Foundation was given to FAIR in 1997 or 1998. And in 2001, yet another $150,000 grant was given to FAIR by the Ford Foundation for "general support to monitor and analyze the performance of the news media in the United States."

In recent months, the Ford Foundation and Schumann Foundation-subsidized "media watchdogs" from FAIR and the Institute for Public Accuracy--Norman Solomon and Steve Rendall--have seemed more interested in preventing 9/11 conspiracy researchers and journalists from receiving any airtime on Pacifica's radio stations than in revealing the historical links of their funders to the CIA or the Johnson White House to their alternative media listeners and readers. And WORKING ASSETS RADIO--which is aired on San Francisco's KALW and produced by a former co-host/producer of FAIR's COUNTERSPIN and a forme Pacifica Network News staffperson--has apparently not been eager to welcome 9/11 conspiracy researchers and journalists onto the show.

WORKING ASSETS RADIO

WORKING ASSETS RADIO is a promotional/marketing tool of the $140 million/year, for-profi Working Assets, Inc. telecommunications company. And besides funding its own alternative WORKING ASSETS RADIO show that is aired on KALW in the Bay Area and over the Internet, Working Assets Inc. also helps fund other alternative media groups such as FAIR/COUNTERSPIN and Norman Solomon's Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA). In 1996, for instance FAIR/COUNTERSPIN was given a $59,723 grant by Working Assets Inc. Among the alternative media groups funded by Working Assets Inc. in 2000, besides FAIR/COUNTERSPIN and Norman Solomon's IPA were Free Speech TV and the Independent Press Association. That same year, Working Assets Inc. also helped fund a gorup with which DEMOCRACY NOW producer/host Amy Goodman has worked closely, the East Timor Action Network, as well as the National Public Radio News and Information Fund, the Astraea Foundation, People for the American Way Foundation, the Center for Campus Organizing, United for a Fair Economy, Children's Defense Fund, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), MADRE, and the American Friends Service Committee.

Based in San Francisco, Working Assets Inc. is a privately-held, secretive telecommunications company that discloses very little financial information about its for-profit business to either its 400,000 customers or to U.S. consumers in general. One of its founders was Tides Foundation President Drummond Pike. A trustee of Mills College in recent years, Laura Scher, is a top executive at Working Assets Inc. Another top Working Assets Inc. executive, Michael Kieschnick, has also been involved until recently with the board of the National Network of Grantmakers, which also includes representatives of the Funding Exchange and the board of Mother Jones magazine/Foundation for National Progress. Kieschnick still sits on the White House Project Advisory Board between folks like PBS CEO Pat Michell and former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale. The White House Project Advisory Board was set-up to promote the presidential candidacies of mainstream women politicians such as U.S. Senator Rodham-Clinton. Another Working Assets Inc. official in recent years, Lawrence Livak, has also been the Tides Foundation Treasurer in recent years.

Because Working Assets Inc.'s stock is not sold on the stock market, it is not legally obligated to post much financial information about its business operations onto the Internet. In addition, executives at Working Assets Inc. have been reluctant to reveal to Movement writer-activists what kind of salaries it is presently paying its top executives. Working Assets Inc. has also collaborated with J.C. Penney in recent years on a "Shop for Social Change" business project.

Besides having the book she wrote in the 1990s subsidized by the Ford Foundation, the WORKING ASSETS RADIO host/producer, Laura Flanders, also had her journalism work subsidized for awhile in 1998 by another foundation. After the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation gave a $50,000 grant to the Center for Democracy Studies of The Nation Institute, "to monitor anti-abortion activities of several right-wing groups," Flanders was employed briefly by that Nation magazine think-tank to write an article on the subject, which subsequently appeared in The Nation magazine. In 2000, the Rockefeller Foundation also gave the WORKING ASSETS RADIO producer/host and two colleagues a $20,000 grant "to support the creation and production of `Action Heroes,' a multidisciplinary work." Members of the Rockefeller Foundation have included World Bank manager, a Ford Motor Company director, a MacArthur Foundation director, and an ITT Sheraton Corp. vice-president in recent years.

Besides being the niece of COUNTERPUNCH editor Alexander Cockburn, WORKING ASSETS RADIO producer/host Flanders is also the older sister of Stephanie Flanders, who worked in the Clinton Administration as a speechwriter/special assistant to Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Around the same time that former U.S. Treasury Secretary Summers was named the new president of Harvard University, Stephanie Flanders began working as a NEW YORK TIMES reporter. An October 1999 OBSERVER article by Simon Kuper, entitled "The New Elite Who Run Our Equal Society" indicated that the WORKING ASSETS RADIO host's younger sister is part of a British elite group nicknamed "The Young Chiefs." According to Kuper: "Members of this new elite were presented with thrilling opportunities early in life... Another characteristic of the new elite is networks. The Young Chiefs, who tend to live near each other in the centre of London, got the big breaks from old friends or people they meet at their friends' brunches or leaving parties. On the political side, the Young Chiefs are so close that many of them are related. Ed Balls (Oxford, Harvard and the Financial Times, economic adviser to Gordon Brown)...studied in Boston...Ball's wife, Yvette Cooper (Oxford and Harvard, now a Labour MP), is a Young Chief too, as is her sometime tutorial partner at Oxford, Stephanie Flanders (Oxford, Harvard and the Financial Times, senior adviser to the U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers)...Nick Denton (Oxford and the Financial Times, founder of Moreover.com) was a friend of Flanders at the Financial Times and through her met the elder Balls"