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POLITICS-US: Right's New Strategy Emulates the "Enemy"
By Bill Berkowitz*
OAKLAND, California, Feb 28 (IPS) - The history of the modern U.S.
conservative movement - circa 1964 to the present - is replete with its
share of hucksters, snake oil salesman, rhetoricians, mudslingers,
marketers and one-hit wonders. But it also has had more than its fair
share of visionaries, opportunists (in the best sense of the word),
motivated entrepreneurs, perhaps even revolutionaries.
Rod Martin, the founder and head of a new organisation called
TheVanguard.org, linking Silicon Valley entrepreneurship with ideological
zeal, appears to consider himself a conservative revolutionary for the
twenty-first century.
To carry the "revolution forward" - a slogan featured on the group's
website - Martin, a Silicon Valley-seasoned entrepreneur and political
activist, has launched TheVanguard.org.
Most of the pieces for a rejuvenated conservative movement were already in
place by 1994, including a highly-functional infrastructure of right-wing
foundations, think tanks, advocacy organisations, media outlets -
conservative talk radio and Christian television - and an army of
grassroots volunteers.
But a little over a decade later, youngish conservatives are again
restless. Embittered by defeat at the hands of the Democratic Party in
November, which they attribute to the Republican leadership "selling
conservatives out", these new activists are calling for a new conservative
movement.
In a relatively short time, Martin has made a name for himself as an
up-and-coming organiser out to create just that.
At present, there are several noteworthy things about TheVanguard.org: the
origin of its name; its stated goal to both emulate and take on
MoveOn.org; its mix of Silicon Valley pedigree and fundraising sources
with veteran movement conservatives; its weaving of so-called traditional
religious principles with secular conservatism; and its hiring of
dedicated slash-and-burn right-wing ideologues.
The term "vanguard" - derived from the Middle English "vantgard" short
for "avant garde" - is defined in "The American Heritage Dictionary of
the English Language" as "the foremost position in an army or fleet,"
"the... leading position in a trend or movement," and "those occupying
such a position."
The term also has its roots firmly planted in Vladimir Ilyich Ulnayov
(Lenin), the Russian revolutionary, who developed the idea of the Vanguard
Party, and wrote about it in the 1902 pamphlet titled "What is to Be
Done?" According to Wikipedia, "a vanguard party is a political party or
grassroots organisation at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or
revolution."
TheVanguard.org did not respond to an IPS request for an interview.
But in a recent interview with the conservative weekly Human Events,
Martin paid tribute to, and took aim at, the highly successful liberal
internet-based MoveOn,org.
"The left has been brilliant at leveraging technology," Martin said, "and
so have we to a point: our bloggers and news sites are amazing, and the
RNC's [Republican National Committee] get-out-the-vote software is
unparalleled. But no one on our side has even begun to create anything
like MoveOn. And after 2006, if we want to survive, much less build a
long-term conservative majority, we better start, and fast."
In a letter to supporters posted at TheVanguard.org website, Martin
pointed out that "the issue isn't just taking the fight to MoveOnà. [it]
is also learning a lesson from MoveOn, by taking on - and taking back -
our own party first. MoveOn has done a great job of making the Democrat
Party live up to the ideology of its membership. That may or may not be a
good idea from an election point-of-view. But it's certainly been
rewarding for the people who give their hearts and souls to electing
Democrats year after year."
Martin, who has both entrepreneurial - he worked for the Internet
commerce site PayPal - and movement experience - he is a member of the
Federalist Society and the secretive Council on National Policy among
other far right groups - has reeled in "a top-drawer cast, including
Silicon Valley heavy-hitters like Eric Jackson (a former PayPal colleague
of Martin's, where he was head of marketing) and Gil Amelio (former CEO of
two Fortune 500 companies, including Apple Computer), among others," Human
Events reported.
In addition, longtime movement conservatives such as Grover Norquist,
founder and head of American for Tax Reform, Stephen Moore, founder of
Club for Growth (and current Wall Street Journal editorial board member),
"compassionate conservatism" guru Marvin Olasky, and Ronald Reagan
Doctrine-architect Jack Wheeler are all members of Vanguard's board of
advisors.
While Martin may be the force behind TheVangaurd.org, two recent hires
could easily become the group's most controversial figures. In
late-January, TheVanguard.org hired Jerome Corsi, co-author with John
O'Neill of the 2004 book "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak
Out Against John Kerry," which seriously damaged the Kerry campaign that
November, to become a senior political strategist.
The other new employee is Richard Poe, a longtime journalist and former
employee of conservative provocateur/entrepreneur David Horowitz, who is
the group's editorial and creative director. Poe recently co-authored,
with Horowitz, "The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and
Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party," a book that
accuses liberals of using deception, lies, and Soros' dough to take over
the country.
Poe has also been a close observer of Hillary Clinton, having penned
"Hillary's Secret War," which according to the author, describes "how
Hillary Clinton and the left's 'shadow government' have laboured to put
her and her far-left agenda in the White House by controlling the
still-uncensored flow of real news to Americans - via the Internet."
Frederick Clarkson, the author of "Eternal Hostility", a primer on the
theocratic right in the United States, and a longtime observer of U.S.
right-wing politics, told IPS that, "TheVanguard.org epitomises the
tactics of the far right of the contemporary Republican Party."
"The recent additon of Jerome Corsi - a leader of the 'swiftboat veterans
for truth' which ran a vicious smear campaign against Sen. John Kerry when
he ran for president, as the 'senior political strategist' is a fair
indication of how it plans to use the powerful tool of the internet and
the blogosphere."
"It is also startling to me that one of TheVanguard's advisers is Jack
Wheeler, best known as an unofficial liaison to groups seeking to
overthrow governments opposed by the Reagan White House, notably in
Nicaragua, Mozambique, Afghanistan and Angola," Clarkson said. "It is
strange that a prominent advocate of armed insurgencies is such a public
advisor to a domestic political group."
These days, TheVanguard.org reports that its site traffic is rising and
blog buzz is building. Whether this will "Forward the Revolution" as
Martin intends, remains to be seen.
*Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His
column "Conservative Watch" documents the strategies, players,
institutions, victories and defeats of the U.S. Right.
(END/2007)
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