Special Report: The Plan To Silence Conservatives -- Part I
By Cliff Kincaid
January 16, 2007

Memphis, Tennessee: Media reform sounds like a good cause. But the gathering here of more than 2,000 activists turned out to be an effort to push the Democratic Party further to the left and get more "progressive" voices in the media, while proposing to use the power of the federal government to silence conservatives.

In short, triumphant liberals now want to consolidate and expand their power.

Several speakers, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, declared that they think Congress should use a new federal "fairness doctrine" to target conservative speech on television and radio.

But while conservatives are not ashamed to be conservatives, because of the popularity of their ideas about freedom, a strong military, economic growth and traditional values, the liberals at this conference wanted desperately to avoid the use of the term "liberal," apparently because of its association with failed domestic, social and foreign policies. They described themselves and their causes as "progressive."

If this conference has an impact, and the participants were called upon to put pressure on the media and Congress, we should expect increasing references to the term "progressive" in coverage of controversial liberal initiatives, including the proposed agenda for "media reform." The only question is when congressional liberals get enough nerve to aggressively push this authoritarian attempt to muzzle their political opponents.

The Soros Connection

Sponsored by Free Press, a Massachusetts-based organization that is generously subsidized by pro-Democratic Party billionaire George Soros, the "National Conference on Media Reform" featured Bill Moyers and Jesse Jackson and Hollywood celebrities such as Danny Glover, Geena Davis and Jane Fonda. (web site)

Soros, portrayed by the major media and "progressives" funded by him as a humanitarian and philanthropist, has made billions of dollars through international financial manipulations conducted through secretive off-shore hedge funds. He was convicted of insider trading in France, one of many countries to have borne the brunt of his global financial schemes.

He spent over $26 million in the 2004 presidential campaign trying to defeat Bush and also contributed to groups that have brought Democrats to power in Congress.

His "media reform" agenda is being pursued primarily though Free Press, which has received at least $400,000 over the last several years from the Soros-funded Open Society Institute. But Soros has also poured money into groups like the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and Investigative Reporters & Editors. (web site)

One obvious purpose of such grants is to steer the media away from investigating Soros himself. However, during one media appearance, on the CBS 60 Minutes program, Soros acknowledged that as a 14-year-old Jewish boy in Hungary, his identity was protected and that he actually assisted in confiscating property from Jews as they were being shipped off to death camps. (web site) As an adult, he shuns pro-Israel causes and believes in accommodating the Iranian regime.

The Free Press co-founder, John Nichols, has edited such books as Against the Beast, a critique of the "American Empire," and shares Soros's opposition to a U.S. foreign policy that targets emerging threats in the Arab/Muslim world.

In addition to the creation of what he calls a "New World Order" under U.N. auspices, Soros's causes include abortion, drug legalization, and special rights for immigrants, homosexuals, felons, and prostitutes. An atheist, Soros is promoting the complete breakdown of traditional values and morality in America.

In the official conference program, however, there was no mention of the Soros role in funding Free Press. However, thanks were extended to the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Overbrook Foundation, Quixote Foundation, Glaser Progress Foundation, and the Haas Trusts.

"We are grateful also for the generosity and support of many other public charities, private foundations and individual donors," the conference program said, carefully concealing their identities.

Publications and organizations given credit for promoting the event included The American Prospect magazine, The Washington Monthly, The Nation, and MoveOn.org

Reds Not Under Beds

The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which opposes the Chinese communist government as too capitalist, was one of the official exhibitors. Also on hand, displaying banners calling for the impeachment of President Bush, was the so-called 9/11 truth movement, which holds that Muslims were blamed for the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon when U.S. officials actually carried them out.

Other exhibitors included the Newspaper Guild, Consumers Union, Mother Jones magazine, Pacifica Radio, and Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now."

While the Democratic Party and its political leaders were embraced by most of the participants and usually met with standing ovations, the official conference bookstore didn't offer any books by or about Hillary Clinton. I was told by the bookstore owner that that she was perceived as too conservative by this crowd and that those books wouldn't sell.

On the other hand, books by Senator Barack Obama and Al Gore were prominently featured. Books by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Mikhail Gorbachev, former White House reporter Helen Thomas, and Webster Tarpley, a former associate of Lyndon LaRouche, were also available. Tarpley, an "expert" on how 9/11 was a U.S. plot, was a featured guest for two hours on Air America, the liberal radio network now in bankruptcy because of bad management and dismal ratings.

A special screening of the film "Reel Bad Arabs" was held, in order to argue that Arabs and Muslims deserve more favorable coverage from the media and Hollywood. The film is narrated by Jack Shaheen, who recently appeared on Al-Jazeera English making charges of anti-Arab media bias. (web site)

Very little was said during various panels about the Islamic terrorists who killed almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11 and are currently killing American soldiers and innocent civilians, most of them Muslims, in Iraq. Instead, Bush was blamed for the violence there.

Showing where conference participants stood on the matter of maintaining a U.S. military to defend America against the global Jihad, one of the books on sale at the official conference bookstore was titled, 10 Excellent Reasons Not To Join The Military.

Former conservative David Brock, of another Soros-funded group, Media Matters, labeled the Bush foreign policy of liberating Arab lands as "criminally insane." On the same panel with Brock, Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy suggested that U.S. foreign policy was immoral and that the media were working hand-in-glove with the Bush Administration to prepare a military attack on Iran, just as they had done with Iraq.

Reaching new levels of hysteria, Rep. Maurice Hinchey said the survival of America was itself at stake because "neo-fascist" and "neo-con" talk-show hosts led by Rush Limbaugh had facilitated the "illegal" war in Iraq and were complicit in President Bush's repeated violations of the Constitution, such as by detaining terrorists. He warned that the "right-wing oriented media" were now preparing the way for Bush to wage war on Iran and Syria.

His answer, a bill titled the "Media Ownership Reform Act," would reinstate the federal fairness doctrine and authorize bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to monitor and alter the content of radio and television programs.

Hinchey, chairman of the "Future of American Media Caucus" in the House, was introduced as the new chairman of a subcommittee with jurisdiction over the FCC. For Hinchey and the vast majority at the conference, there was a pressing need for more, not less, regulation of what they call the "corporate media."

With passage of his bill, Hinchey said that "progressives" would be able to demand and get "equal access" to programs hosted by conservatives and rebut the "baloney" of people like Limbaugh. "All of that stuff will end," Hinchey said about the influence of conservative media. By name, he also denounced Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting.

Hinchey praised Democratic FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, who appeared at the conference, and indicated that with the election of a Democratic President in 2008, the FCC could be openly used to frustrate the growing popularity of conservative ideas, perhaps under the cover of resisting "media consolidation."

Later, Hinchey was seen preparing for an appearance on Air America, which had a make-shift studio set up on the premises of the conference.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.