9-11 & YouTube; Proof of the Republican National Committees and Exxon's Campaigns Against Truth!

The Republican Party and the President in this White House have sneakily turned to the entertainment realm to relay to the American public more of their propaganda.  This has been their strategy for almost fifteen years now if not more.  They have 'played the American people like a fiddle."  And we've lost our jobs, our health, and our democracy as a result of their propaganda campaigns.

Now I know how fiercely underhanded and crooked they are. 

Read this riveting New York Time's article, 'Odd Bedfellows Align to Market Film About 9/11 coming out this month in advance of the premiere of "World Trade Center" by Oliver Stone.

Habfinger was right when he said, "Odd bedfellows..." because most who think of Oliver Stone, think of movies against the establishment and anti-war, such as "Platoon" or "Born on the Fourth of July". And movies like "JFK" or the 1995 film "Nixon" that portrayed the former GOP president as a borderline psychopath are certainly not designed to be-friend conservatives. There's more movies on his anti-establishment list: "Salvador" in 1986 was critical of President Reagan's Central American policy. And "Alexander" Stone's 2004 movie was rumored to be a subtle indictment of President Bush and the Iraq war.

As a result, most would be excused for choking on their morning coffee when they heard the rave revues from right-winged pundits about this movie:

"L. Brent Bozell III, president of the conservative Media Research Center and founder of the Parents Television Council — best known for its campaigns against indecency on television and for stiffer penalties on broadcasters — called it “a masterpiece” and sent an e-mail message to 400,000 people saying, “Go see this film.”

Cal Thomas, the syndicated columnist and host of "Fox News After-Hours", wrote last Thursday that it was “one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see.”

If you're like me, you're thinking, "What the heck...! How could this miracle happen?"

As the New York Times points out, these rave reviews were no accident and they were brought to you by the same Public Relations Firm that brought us the well-known smear campaign against John Kerry in 2004. (The Swift Boat Veterans...) Here's a sample of their work:

A screening in Washington last week, for example, drew members of the Family Research Council, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the evangelical Wilberforce Forum, along with a producer for William Bennett’s radio show, writers for The Washington Times and a reporter for the Web site of Human Events, which first reported the event. Creative Response Concepts has played a prominent role in promoting conservative causes. Heading into the 2005 Supreme Court nomination battles, it advised members of the Federalist Society on how to handle television interviews and was active in promoting the nominations of John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. When the AARP came out against President Bush’s plan to overhaul Social Security, the firm went to work for a conservative group that took on the AARP. And it promoted Newt Gingrich’s 1994 political strategy, Contract With America.

But it was in the 2004 campaign that Creative Response Concepts made its biggest mark on the political landscape, advising the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which assailed Mr. Kerry’s Vietnam record as a Navy officer and as a leader of the antiwar movement after he returned home. Its well-funded attacks were among the most damaging blows to the Kerry campaign.

The firm also played a major role that year in assailing CBS — then a corporate sister of Paramount at Viacom — for the “60 Minutes” report on President Bush’s record in the Texas Air National Guard that led to Dan Rather’s resignation as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”

So from there, I began investigating more. Follow along as I try to show you the connections I discovered along the way.

It took some searching but I finally found the Creative Response Concept's website. Below, you can see a partial list of their partial list of their clients. Let's play a game and see which ones you recognise...

Contract With America
Media Research Center
Microsoft Corporation
National Republican Congressional Committee
National Republican Senatorial Committee
National Taxpayers Union
Parents Television Council
PAX Television
Republican National Committee
Time Warner Inc
Universal Studios
Viacom Inc.
Walden Media
The Walt Disney Company
Warner Brothers Television Network

This firm brags about their association with the Parent's Tv Council. Read their Strategy & Implementation and their results and see what else you recognise:

The PTC was founded 10 years ago to protect children from being constantly bombarded by gratuitous sex, violence and profanity on television and other entertainment media. Working with the PTC since its inception,CRC was recently tasked with branding the organization as the recognized authority on entertainment decency issues.

Strategy & Implementation
Working with the PTC, CRC developed a program to change the way the Federal Communication Commission addresses complaints about indecency on television. CRC trained local and national spokespeople, publicized PTC studies on indecency, and distributed op-eds written by the PTC. CRC reached out to trade publications, talk radio hosts, print journalists and television producers about the PTC’s programs.

Results
Spokespeople for the PTC have been included in stories on NBC’s Today Show, ABC World News Tonight, Entertainment Tonight, CBS’ Sunday Morning, FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC. Articles about the PTC have run in Entertainment Weekly, Family Circle, Wall Street Journal, Ladies Home Journal, New York Times, and USA Today among scores of other publications. Recently, the PTC was the focus of a cover story in
Time.

Would you say this is much greater than an just a mere intersection of arts & policits? I'm thinking the words 'well-funded, strategy', 'snow jo-...sales job..propaganda' and 'big-bully on the block' might be closer to what is happening here.

At any rate, I found even more to comprehend at the same site. Soak in these...:

Success in modern issue advocacy requires organizations to educate and inform decision makers, community leaders, and the general public about the benefits of supporting their position. It is no longer enough just to have a traditional Washington presence in the form of a lobbyist.

Media coverage is critical to the success of any issue based effort. Publicity is the most trusted means of informing and educating your target audiences.

Gaining positive publicity for your issue through television coverage, editorials, newspaper articles, talk radio interviews, and on the Internet is no longer an option. It is a requirement.

AND

Too often, companies make a fundamental mistake in their litigation response. They fail to recognize the need to manage two trials: one playing out in the court room and the other in the media. Public relations is essential to protecting the millions – even billions – of dollars invested by companies in their reputation and brand.

CRC’s litigation support experience includes extensive work with some of the world’s largest, most recognized brands. Working in concert with the legal team, CRC crafts the strategies and implements the tactics to carry your message from the court room to Wall Street to the general public.

And this one as well...:

One of the most significant challenges that a company will ever face is dealing with the media at a time of crisis. Whether it is the result of litigation, legislation, a product defect or a false claim made against you – your company, brand, and reputation are on the line.

 

Each crisis situation is different - requiring unique strategy and immediate response. Failure to do so can have far reaching affects ranging from loss of reputation and decreased market share to diminished customer loyalty and reduced stock value.

CRC has a successful track record representing clients in crisis situations. From Presidential candidates, to the nation’s largest corporations, to the most recognized non-profit groups, CRC’s highly experienced staff develops strategy, works with the media, presents your message, and protects your brand at a time of crisis.

I have been pondering those connections since last week. Today, I discovered that one of Creative Response Concepts client's is "quietly working Capitol Hill to avert a backlash" to Oliver Stone's 9-11 film.

Who's the client? Look up at the list...do you see Viacom?

Yes, apparently Viacom is quietly lobbying Congress to make sure they won't be hurt by the release of this movie.

Euuuuuwwww...

"...Viacom's effort to reassure lawmakers underscores how important having smooth relations in Washington is to the media giant, which has at stake such issues as indecency and cable-TV regulations."

As a result, Viacom (DeDe Lea) and Washington (Eric Ueland) and decided to go proactive:

So Viacom followed an old Washington adage: Spotlight your problem, said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

Executives (at Paramount sister company to Viacom) have been reassuring congressional leaders, White House staff members and lawmakers who represent the New York area, such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), that Stone is telling a nonpartisan tale of heroism, not advancing his political agenda.

Thus it was a result of this movie that had Representative King more focused on a movie instead of creating sound public policy or the latest White House travesty. King says,

"I asked them several times: Are there any Oliver Stone conspiracies in there?" King recalled. "Is it going to be, 'Bush really did it? Clinton really did? Lyndon Johnson really did it?' I was concerned this would be like a 9/11 version of 'JFK.'" (Our hard earned tax dollars at work!)

Well, I would like to know, given the connection to media regulations, Viacom, the RNC that CRC represents and then given the connection to NYC That Hillary Clinton has, what kind of quiet lobbying is going on behind the scenes. Are these behind closed doors lobbying and the intertwined use of a Public Relations firm and lobbying effecting our democracy?

What do you think?

UPDATE:  Since writing this article, the article recently hit the news about Exxon creating an anti-Al Gore video on you-tube without proper disclosure that they were a professional advertising group.  More of their underhanded tactics come to the light. 

Liars...the lot of them!  But this is the current Republican Party--they play to win...no matter what the cost and who it hurts--anything goes as long as they can keep feeding their power-hungry public 'servants' and can keep feeding our tax dollars to the greedy corporations and their make their CEO's pocketbooks bulge even more. 

Welcome to their form of Democracy: lies, death, torture, war profiteering, and propaganda.