Watching Freedom's Watch: A Classic Front Group

What is a Front Group?

As a team that has spent a tremendous amount of time, especially over the last four years investigating and exposing these groups, here is a little history about where front froups came from.

The modern political front group actually got its start about 50 years ago in the tobacco industry. As the Surgeon General targeted cigarettes and scientific studies were being publicized about the dangers of cigarettes, the tobacco industry, quite simply, created their own front groups in order to counter the real groups.

They said, "Doubt is our product," and they used well-funded front groups to fool the public into believing there were "two sides" to the story that tobacco use cased cancer and other diseases.

What are the characteristics of those groups that help define a front group today?

Well, for one, the proponents are paid mercenaries, not concerned citizens.

Just as John O'Neill received $50,000 in August 2004 from the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth and Admiral Roy Hoffman's foundation received $100,000 in early 2005, the people working for Freedom's Watch are not tireless grassroots advocates, they are paid professionals.

The second characteristic of these groups is that they are launched fully-formed and well-funded, often directly from Washington, D.C. The funding comes from few sources, and the front group is designed to push yet mask the agenda of these few funders. The day that Freedom's Watch launched out of DC, it had $15 million in the bank and completed TV commercials.

Contrast this with say, MoveOn.org, which was launched from an online petition by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades in California and grew into an organization as thousands upon thousands of concerned regular citizens joined. Or VoteVets, launched by Jon Soltz living in his office in New York.

Movements come from outside in, ground up. Front groups are launched fully formed, top down.

One of the clearest ways to see this is to look at the traffic that two sites receive.

If you head on over to www.alexa.com and compare MoveOn with Freedom's Watch, you'll see a clear fact - Freedom's Watch doesn't get any traffic - there is no support from the ground up, there is only the front, from the top down.

Finally, while Joan and Wes have always been and always will be involved with MoveOn, just as VoteVets is always going to be Jon Soltz's group, the heads of front groups like Freedom's Watch will change.

It appears that Bradley Blakeman is now the President, former George Bush spokesperson. He wasn't the head of it when it launched. And six months from now, it will be someone else.

The donors and the missions of front groups remain, the employees change, a lot.

To find out more about Freedom's Watch, visit www.freedomswatch.newsladder.net.

This is our previous post in this series, Watching Freedom's Watch: The Donors.

Comments

[FogBelter]

Gentlemen, grab yourselves a copy of "Gold Warriors" by Peggy and Sterling Seagrave and look into the story of Col Joe McMicking, and the origins of his fortune.

McMicking was one of General MacArthur's "Bataan Boys" who came into a large sum of money thanks to some Intel Work he did in the Philippines. The reason I mention this is one of Freedom's Watch's donors, Howard Leach, former Ambassador to France, 2001-2005, is partner of Col McMicking's nephew in his California Company, Leach McMicking & Co.

Leach also helped to fund the Florida Recount in 2000.

Check it out Gents, it's an eye opener.

[mommadona]

Eww - he's a STINKER!

"Leach helped Wilson raise $9.5 million for his re-election bid. As chair of the Regents in 1995, Leach led a majority of the board in voting to end affirmative action in the university system. ... [George W.] Bush nominated Leach in 2001 as his Ambassador to France... [Leach] also was a partner at politically connected buyout firm Forstmann Little & Co. Members of Forstmann's board in recent years include: Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George Shultz and Newt Gingrich. The firm also hired Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles as general partner soon after he left the White House in 1999. Soon thereafter Forstmann placed huge bets on two communications companies, XO Communications and McLeodUSA, that cost the firm $2 billion when they bombed. Connecticut sued Forstmann in 2002 after the firm lost $126 million in state pension funds that it sunk into these two communications meltdowns.""

http://www.globalblogs.com/cgi-bin/tseekdir.cgi?location=Root-Finance,044_Insurance,044_L2K_Real_Estate-Investment_Firms

[FogBelter]

Follow the Money ... Mommadona .... follow the money.

[peonyharp]

Right with you, guys.
Thank you.

[mommadona]

Keep it coming....

Star in heaven for you.

NEVER AGAIN!

ONWARD....

[SamThornton]

Tried out the link to the Alexa traffic graph. Odd thing. While moveon.org did receive massively more traffic than freedomswatch.org, the other grass roots site mentioned by Mr. Johnson (votevets.org) proved to have as little traffic as freedomswatch.org.

Unfortunately, this kinda sorta invalidates Mr. Johnson's point that bottom-up, true grass-roots websites necessarily generate more traffic than top-down, astro-turf websites. At least, according to Alexa for these three websites.

This isn't to say that there aren't significant differences between websites and organizations that set out to intentionally offer spin and disinformation and those which don't. Perhaps what it does say is that the people who manage the moveon.org website are simply more proficient in promoting their website than the other two organizations.

[desmirl]

Freedom's Watch was created by people who suffer from the Authoritarian Personality Disorder. Their idea of freedom isn't scary, it's TERRIFYING!

[dwillisno1]

I'm sure that someone who wears a Mickey Mouse Watch would not understand a Freedom's Watch.
What we need is more freedom and less "idea of freedom."

Watch.

[peonyharp]

"I'm sure that someone who wears a Mickey Mouse Watch would not understand a Freedom's Watch. What we need is more freedom and less 'idea of freedom.'

Watch."

:)