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November 24, 2013 |
Why dont we know who one of the most powerful people in America is? What he has done? Why '60 Minutes' called him Dr. Evil? asks Saru Jayaraman, a leader in a growing national movement of restaurant workers demanding better pay and working conditions.
Dr. Evil is Richard Berman, a Washington-based lawyer-turned-hitman for Big Food who pioneered and still deploys many of the most intentionally deceptive, inflammatory and anti-democratic tactics used in corporate propaganda campaigns today. For nearly four decades, Bermans attacks have tried to smear, discredit and destroy public-interest causes and groups by a toxic brew of industry front groups, distortion-filled attacks, ridicule and bullying to stoke prejudice and hatred as a means of turning the publics attention and regulators away from his paymasters business practices.
Take his effort to cripple the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and defame the character of its CEO, Wayne Pacelle. He ran a television ad during the 2013 Academy Awards telling people not to give to HSUS. He created a YouTube video viewed 1.7 million times calling Pacelle the Bernie Madoff of the charity world. He set up a non-profit front group called Humane Watch to undermine donations intended for the HSUS and a website attacking its funding. He even threatened the Better Business Bureau to drop HSUS' accreditation under the business group's Wise Giving Alliance, and then attacked BBB when it refused to do so.
Astute observers have concluded that Berman is guilty of the sins he regularly accuses others of. Legitimate watchdog groups, such as CharityNavigator.org, have characterized his web of non-profit front groups, which take in millions in tax-deductible corporate donations, as the fake charities. Tax law experts contacted by Bloomberg.com said his operation was comparable to Madoffs, a shell game of financial transfers enriching Berman that likely violated tax laws. Investigative reporters have even traced e-mails from front groups who deny theyre working with him back to his office.
http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/richard-bermans-propaganda-wars-take-us-politics-gutter
This man is the ground floor of the Grand Central Station of Right Wing politics and it's marriage to rampant, regressive American corporatism.
RKP5637
(67,107 posts)controlling oligarchy are obsolete for 21st century ... exposing them is helpful to oust them from totalitarian fascist control. "We the people," often have less and less say, voting is rigged and corporate MSM controls many peoples minds. The question is how to gracefully change and move forward to a better financial model. The current model allows for greed, outrageous behavior and inequality, a core problem in today's America.
DissidentVoice
(813 posts)American corporatism is the living, breathing, bloodsucking definition of Benito Mussolini's definition of fascism.
Disaster capitalism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
American exceptionalism is the mindless chanting of "USA! USA! USA!" while completely ignoring the problems within our borders and the problems we cause outside them.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)loudsue
(14,087 posts)so we can overturn Citizens United, and reinstate the fairness doctrine. Those two things right there would go a long way toward reinstating democracy.
RKP5637
(67,107 posts)DissidentVoice
(813 posts)The Fairness Doctrine will take a Democrat (not Blue Dog/DLC) majority in both Houses and a non-DLC President.
"Citizens United"...you're going to have to wait for a hell of a lot of RW corporatist Justices to die off/resign and hope that Sen. Reid's quashing of the filibuster isn't overturned by a GOP Senate Majority Leader.
loudsue
(14,087 posts)And some serious impeachment momentum.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)tblue
(16,350 posts)years ago for wreaking havoc on exposés of high fructose corn syrup. Because people's health is 'meh' compared to the Almighty Dollar.
This man needs to be kept in the spotlight. How evil do you have to be to attack the Humane Socierty???!
GeorgeGist
(25,320 posts)for a sociopath.