Reclaim the Cyber-Commons: The internet is being captured by

Gathered together in one place, for easy access, an agglomeration of writings and images relevant to the Rapeutation phenomenon.

Re: Reclaim the Cyber-Commons: The internet is being capture

Postby admin » Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:23 am

Mary Murphy
by Public Interest Investigations Powerbase
1/26/16

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In an article about the Mexican maize controversy, the journal Science described how 'widely circulating anonymous e-mails' had accused researchers at UC Berkeley of 'conflicts of interest and other misdeeds'. Those e-mails surfaced first on AgBioView - the listserve of AgBioWorld - which prominently circulated emails from a 'Mary Murphy' and an 'Andura Smetacek' that claimed the researchers were primarily activists, not scientists. Murphy and Smetacek's inflammatory attacks initiated and fueled a powerful campaign of denigration of the researchers and pressure on the journal Nature to retract their paper.

In July 2000 a Mary Murphy posted a fake Associated Press article on the message board of foxbghsuit.com, a website dedicated to a legal case connected to Monsanto's genetically engineered cattle drug rBGH.
The Hotmail reply address given matches that of the attacker of the Berkeley researchers - mmrph@hotmail.com; however, other identifying details are shown in brackets on the site:

Posted by Mary Murphy (bw6.bivwood.com)
ACTIVISTS CHANGE STANCE ON GMOs AFTER SCIENTISTS GENETICALLY ALTER MARIJUANA (AP)
June 9, 2000


This is not the only evidence as to Murphy's true identity. After making a passing defence of DDT on the AgBioView listserv, Murphy was drawn into correspondence off-list with another subscriber. The technical headers on these e-mails also show Murphy's mails as originating from bw6.bivwood.com - the domain name of The Bivings Group, an internet PR company that, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune, 'has developed "Internet advocacy" campaigns for corporate America since 1996'. The article notes, 'biotechnology giant Monsanto' is 'among the Bivings clients who have discovered how to make the Internet work for them.' The technical headers of a number of Andura Smetacek e-mails show the Internet Protocol address 199.89.234.124 - numbers assigned to Monsanto's headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri.

Between April and May 2002, the British publications The Big Issue, The Ecologist and The Guardian published a series of articles alleging that AgBioView was used as part of a corporate smear campaign against the researchers by Bivings. In a letter published in The Guardian on Wednesday 12 June 2002, Gary Bivings, the President of The Bivings Group, states that, 'The allegations made against the Bivings Group in two recent columns (The fake persuaders, May 14, and Corporate phantoms , May 29) are completely untrue.' Gary Bivings goes on to claim that, 'the Bivings Group has no knowledge of either Mary Murphy or Andura Smetacek'.

However, before Gary Bivings' letter of denial had even been published, Bivings' head of online PR, Todd Zeigler, had confided to the BBC that one of the e-mails in question was sent by someone 'working for Bivings' or 'clients using our services'. The admission, made to BBC TV's news and current affairs programme, Newsnight, was included in their report on the Mexican maize scandal broadcast on 7th June 2002 (see the programme transcript).

The way in which the attacks on the Berkeley researchers was initiated and directed also needs to be understood in the context of a much longer-running internet-based PR campaign aimed at destroying the reputation of anyone seen as adversely affecting the interests of the biotechnology industry. Smetacek and Murphy between them posted 60 or more pieces that CS Prakash published, often prominently, on the AgBioView list. Murphy also posted material onto other lists and message boards. Murphy also appears to have lobbied organisations critical of GM crops to change their stance, to judge by a letter published in July 2000 by the American Chiropractic Association. In it Murphy tells the ACA: 'Your press release about the dangers of GM food is so ridiculous that I don't even know where to begin. How can you pass on such rubbish and at the same time expect to be taken seriously as scientists/ medical practitioners? ... over 2,000 scientists have signed a petition supporting the safety and benefits of GM crops (see http://www.agbioworld.org). If you want to be taken seriously, you should not make ridiculous claims and you should show respect for the scientists who are developing this important technology.'

Murphy's attacks, like Smetacek's, were often vitriolic. This is Murphy to AgBioView on the Indian physicist and environmentalist, Dr Vandana Shiva:

Date: 8 Nov 2001 12:24:03 -0000
From: Mary Murphy <mmrph@hotmail.com>
Subject: Liar, Liar [excerpt]
Vandana Shiva's done it again. Lying about technology and lying about Monsanto to foment more violence and unrest in India.


Murphy, like Smetacek, also targets support for organic agriculture: 'Organic agriculture is lower yielding and thus more expensive; it uses dangerous chemicals... and it offers no extra nutritional benefits. However, since fools are free to do whatever they want with their money, I have never had a problem with people who buy organic food.' (EU green group urges tax breaks for organic foods, Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 11:20:44-0500)
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Re: Reclaim the Cyber-Commons: The internet is being capture

Postby admin » Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:33 am

Cancún climate talks in danger of collapse over Kyoto continuation
by John Vidal, environment editor
December 3, 2010
Comments

SteB1
5 Dec 2010 3:16

@ScepticMike

I was very suspicious of the idea that people are being paid to write" denialist "nonsense on these pages but "OceaninMotion" has raised doubts in my mind.


A ten-hour working day, being paid by the word, would seem to be a possible explanation for the tidal wave of standard lies, misunderstanding and complete ignorance that he has just produced over the past few hours.

Yes I tend to discount conspiracies or the worst options without a lot of evidence. However, my experience with some of these contrarians causes me to question whether these are really joe public off the street types doing it because they care strongly about the issue. Firstly, I don't know of many enthusiastic people that would spend 10 hours or more a day posting lie, after lie - lies that get repeatedly exposed. The other week, one of them pursued me for over 12 hours, from the afternoon to 4:30am in the morning. They tried one intellectual trick after another to catch me out and try and get something on me. Initially it seemed it was a typical uninformed bloke off the street making uninformed comments. However, as it progressed I realised I was arguing with a professional who had a background in the arts, philosophy, economics etc.

I also see very strong evidence that these troll attacks are coordinated. When one of these environmental articles is posted the so called contrarians descend on it en masse, no matter what time of the day the article is posted. There are ridiculous amounts of recommendations given to any contrarian comment, no matter how short, if it is complete drivel, and even if the claim is shown to be completely untrue. The deliberate attempt is to hoodwink the public into believing that contrarians are a mass joe public movement, when in reality they appear to be a very noisy minority. At the very least there is a forum or social networking site that these trolls are using to coordinate their attacks.

There appears to be little doubt in my mind that this is a coordinated and orchestrated viral propaganda campaign. The clear attempt is to repeat the same lie over and over, and to drown out all the informed commenters by sheer force of numbers. The attempt is clear, and that is to litter all environmental reporting with a mass of lies and distortions in the hope that it will mislead a few more of the public. I have been arguing that the natural world matters since I was very young and before any of these issues became popular. I have nearly 40 years experience of the type of argument people put up. What is new is that these people carry on after you repeatedly expose them for not knowing what they are talking about, and having made false statements. They don't care, you are arguing with people that have no intellectual integrity at all. This is very unusual. Normally when someone is personally motivated to argue something, they naturally care about the subject. But these people do not give a damn about being right or not. So what motivates someone to post one inaccurate claim after another, and to not care about repeatedly being exposed for using intellectual dishonesty?

As for myself, I am temporarily housebound, I have cared passionately about the natural world since I was a young child, and certainly no one is paying me to do it.
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Re: Reclaim the Cyber-Commons: The internet is being capture

Postby admin » Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:40 am

American Majority: Part The Astroturf To See What's Underneath
By Karoli Kuns
4/26/10

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YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


What do you do when you live in Kansas, are the twin sons of disgraced Kansas Congressman Jim Ryun and you have access to a whole lot of money? What else? Start a non-profit organization to raise up a 'grassroots army'.

Meet American Majority, the newest right wing non-profit on the block. If you actually click that link you'll get a big overlay asking "Do you want your country back?" American Majority was born in 2008 (keep that date in mind), and its stated purpose is as follows:

American Majority, Inc.s' purpose is to create a national political training institute dedicated to recruiting, identifying, training and mentoring potential political leaders. More particularly, the organization is a non-partisan political training institute whose mission is to train and equip a national network of leadership committed to individual freedom through limited government and the free market. Advocating true federalism, toward that end, the organization intends to build a national network of leaders and grassroots advocates who aspire to increase freedom for individuals and freedom and in the marketplace.


One weakness in their training materials has already emerged, as their Kansas field director evidently interpreted freedom for individuals and freedom in the marketplace to mean freedom to inject the Tea Party into a pitch for Google fiber.

One passes through their site and any thinking human being knows it's about as libertarian as my left foot. It's a Republican agitation arm disguised with some plasticky-looking grass on it. Before their first Texas training session in 2009, Drew Ryun sat down for an interview with the Dallas News. I appreciate his candor, and you will too.

A month after President Barack Obama took office in January, Drew Ryun moved to Texas and began organizing the state office of American Majority.


That would have been around what? February 2009? What took so long?

According to American Majority's 990 filing for 2008, they'd conducted 9 training sessions in Kansas, 4 in Louisiana, 4 in Minnesota, and 6 in Oklahoma by December 31, 2008. It doesn't take a math genius to figure out they were around before Barack Obama was elected in November, 2008. And if they were around before the general election, who were they training and for what purpose? And...who is funding them?

It's that last question that piqued my curiosity. Drew Ryun helps to answer the first part of it in the Dallas News article:

Ryun estimates that "above 75 percent" of American Majority's funding comes from the Sam Adams Alliance, a conservative think tank in Chicago. In return for their tax-exempt status, American Majority and the Sam Adams Alliance are required to make their income tax returns available to the public.


Who is the Sam Adams Alliance?

You may recognize the name if you've visited any Tea Party sites. Their logo usually rests alongside those of FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and other Republican sponsors.

Here are some facts about the Sam Adams Alliance published late in 2009:

The president of Sam Adams Alliance is John Tsarpalas, former executive director of the Illinois State Republican party. Eric O'Keefe, SAA's chairman and CEO, is a former executive director of the National Libertarian Party. He once worked for Citizens for Congressional Reform (pdf), a project of David Koch's Citizens for a Sound Economy. Along with noted Libertarian financier Howard Rich, O'Keefe sits on the board of directors of Americans for Limited Government.

Shortly before online activist Eric Odom helped kick-start the Tea Party movement, he was new media director for Sam Adams Alliance. This put him in charge of (among other things) setting up websites, coordinating Facebook groups, managing Twitter accounts and other social networking tasks. Odom's first known acts as a Tea Partier were to set up the OfficialChicagoTeaParty.com site and Facebook pages within hours of Rick Santelli's February rant, then spreading word through Twitter, initially utilizing #TCOT, a Twitter list and hashtag for Top Conservatives on Twitter.


Since their last tax filing in November 2009, they've added a new director. His name is Denis Calabrese. From his bio page:

Denis served as Washington D.C. Chief-of-Staff for the now retired Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Richard Armey.


In the world of non-profits, large donors like to be on the board to oversee the donation they've given. In the past, the Sam Adams Alliance hasn't been a major player. In 2006 direct public support was $401,500. 2007 gifts and grants appear to be 1,822,458, but there are some discrepancies from one year to the next.

But in 2008, donations increased by a factor of ten. Total gifts and grants were $4,222,604. Denis Calabrese joins the board, and coincidentally happens to be Dick Armey's former chief of staff, and donations bloom into full-throated support for offshoots like America's Majority? Ah, the smell of astroturf in the spring.

Of the $4.2 million, $3.7 million was an "unusual grant".

Image

Ordinarily, funds passing from one non-profit to another are listed on the donor's tax disclosures as a grant or gift. Unfortunately, in this case the identity of the donor is unknown, because the Sam Adams Alliance believes in free speech rights and intentionally conceals the identity of their donors. Why are they ashamed to admit who their donors are? What's bad about promoting liberty, small government, American values?

The leadership at Sam Adams thinks it's perfectly okay to conceal the donors of four million tax-deductible dollars. That would be four million tax deductible dollars you and I have to suck up the tab on while they sally forth into tea-party land stirring up the angry hordes and passing millions through tax-exempt entities to other tax-exempt entities in the name of distinctly Republican politics and agitation.

Of course, the Ryun boys couldn't really admit that, because by their own admission, it would jeopardize their tax-exempt status and wreck the whole pretty picture.

Who are these Ryuns anyway?

Ryun insists he is not working for Republicans – explicitly or implicitly. In fact, he believes his brand of conservatism often gets lost in the pragmatism and compromise of everyday Republican Party politics.

"Part of the fight we are having right now is more with the Republican side than with the Democrat side," he said.

American Majority is based in Purcellville, Va., about 40 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. Ned Ryun, Drew Ryun's twin brother, is national director of the organization.


The Ryuns have their own brand of Republican pedigree:

Jim Ryun, their father, was a famous Olympic runner in the 1960s who went on to become a conservative Republican congressman from Kansas. The family has a long history with the Republican Party. Drew Ryun, now a 36-year-old father of two, worked for the Republican National Committee as deputy director of grassroots in 2004. Ned Ryun was a writer for George W. Bush.


Jim Ryun had his own set of ethical challenges in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal. You can read about his acquisition of a Washington, DC townhouse from a Jack Abramoff-funded nonprofit at Talking Points Memo (great collection there), and more about his dealings with Dennis Hastert, Mark Foley, and notable Republican PAC donors here.

Since the Citizens United decision specifically allows corporations to spend as much as they want, but still maintained disclosure as part of the deal, I wonder if the IRS will request additional information on the source of the funding bonanza to the Sam Adams Alliance. I also wonder if Dick Armey and his minions should be trusted with that kind of money, given their own dicey ties to Abramoff and his racket.

I think Matt Angle had it right when the Dallas News asked for his opinion of American Majority:

"What the Republicans are trying to do is put some political organization behind the mean wing of their party..."


Updates:

Oh, now Erick Erickson is getting into the act. Here's his announcement about training camps.

Also of interest: Rachel Maddow's report in 2009 about astroturf groups mentioning this one.
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