Everyone is getting hip to the favorite stealth strategy of the corporate rightwingers: front groups. To normalize and push their ultraconservative, bigoted agenda, corporate lobbyists disguise their propaganda generating centers as "think tanks." Anyone who has done even minimal research knows by now that the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute are not "deep" think tanks but shallow corporate front groups. They have become the propaganda purveyors of choice for rightwing lobbyists (whose ranks now, alas, includes our media) seeking to influence public policy.

Now yet another group has come to the forefront (probably because everyone has been tipped off to the Heritage Foundation): the American Enterprise Institute. Their "experts" are now being spread as thick as flies on a cowpat across the media landscape. Their favorite spewer of the Reich's party line right now is one Danielle Pletka. She was on PBS's McNeil Report, then next morning on C-SPAN. Pletka sounds like something left over from some 1950s "Corporate Wives Against Blacks and Foreign People" club tea party. On C-SPAN you could just hear the disdain dripping from her church lady voice and almost see her dusting herself protectively with a fussy white gloved hand when black people called in with comments. Her claim to fame? She worked on a Foreign Affaris committee with Jesse Helms for some years and did some hack writing for a rightwing rag affiliated with the fanatical Sun Myung Moon's "Washington Times." But she's AEI's Middle Eastern Affairs expert. I guess the Bush administration figures because she looks vaguely like Victoria Clarke, maybe people will think she's with the Pentagon.

Here's an example of Pletka: A black man called in with a very direct, very valid point: OK, so if these wars were such a blow against terrorism, where's Bin Laden? Where's Saddam? Where's all the money that the war against Iraq was supposed to block the flow of? The caller added that he felt Israel was currently the biggest, most well-funded terrorist in the Middle East in its treatment of the Palestinians. Pletka gave a long, tittering, derisive laugh, then said, contemptuously: "I think that man was CONFUSED."

But check this out! The next caller was a rightwing poser (one of those planted callers reading from suggested "scripts"). She started out gushing approval of Pletka in an exaggerated Colonel Sander's southern accent (gotta get those southern rednecks on our side!), but apparently was having trouble both reading from her script and maintaining the phony accent, because she soon lapsed back into her real voice which had a very marked Australian accent (Pletka comes from Australia, too - maybe it was her Aunt Maude!). Talk about CONFUSED! She ended up rambling on as if she were senile. Yet Pletka's response to this pitiful performance: "Oh, I just think you made so many good points!" Yeah, she made a good point allright: AEI and Pletka better hire better plants next time.

At the end of her slot on "Journal," Pletka proudly announced on the program that they would be having a conference later this week and were so very fortunate to have someone as distinguished as Richard Perle as a key speaker! I guess at AIE you qualify for "distinguished" if you weren't actually ridden out of town on a rail!

So, Pletka is your example of the "unbiased" AEI "expert." Now here's a crash course in how AEI operates and what its really all about.

AEI was founded in 1943 as a front group for the big corporations who wanted to prevent FDR from being reelected in 1944. Corporate lobbyists were desperate to overturn the labor-friendly New Deal. They had loved the pre-FDR era when workers could be forced to put in 14 hour days without overtime, for 50 cents a day. These creeps were, and still are, anti-social security, anti-unemployment, anti-welfare, anti-labor unions, and, in general, anti-everything not favorable to big, greedy corporations.

Every thing about AEI, even its title, is deceptive: American Enterprise Institute - "American," yet its big thrust now is on the glory of globalization and on protecting multinational corporations. Enterprise, yet their anti-labor, anti-small business agenda squelches real enterprise and promotes corporate monopolies, which is hardly "enterprise." Institute, which implies an exchange of ideas hardly describes this one-way (to the right) flow of propaganda..

AEI uses a Trojan Horse technique, disquising itself as unbiased or moderately conservative, as a way to pawn their speakers, literature, and "expertise" off on the unsuspecting (or clueless) media, schools, and legislators. But the "objective expert" routine is merely slick packaging. Here's how it works. The titles and text of their manifestos are couched in intellectualese, legalese, or drone-speak (rambling on in a dry manner so long that the true jist of what they are really saying nearly slips past you). At a glance the untutored observer thinks "Oh just a bunch of academic-sounding stuff - just what you'd expect from experts at a think tank." But, beneath the packaging, here is the AIE message, as revealed through recurring themes and messages:

-- Everything, from schools to the U.S. post office to health insurance should be privatized and run by corporations
-- Anything that regulates big business is bad
-- Environmental issues are secondary to the right of corporations to continuously increase their profits
-- Global Warming is phony, the Kyoto treaty was a bad thing
-- Baby Boomers are bad because they fail to blindly trust the military and government
-- All socialists are atheists
-- Unregulated capitalism is Earth's only salvation.
--- Rich people should pay minimal taxes
--- Lower income people should not be protected by the government, they should instead wait for wealth to "trickle down." The AEI renamed "trickle down" "Redistribution of Wealth."
-- Minimum wage is bad and should be eliminated
--Regulating the medical and pharamceutical industries is bad - yet people should not have the right to sue these companies when they screw up
---US dominance of the Middle East is a good thing, peace is bad (sample AEI paper: "Don't Get lost on the Roadmap to Peace in the Middle East")
-- Affirmative action is bad
--Worker protection regulations are bad, in general

If you want an insight into just how far to the right and how racist AEI really is, check out their latest issue of their magazine. The cover story is all about how affirmative action is a horrible thing. This steaming heap of propaganda attempts to prove that affirmative action is not only at the root of race relation problems, but the cause of the decline of America's public schools! Unbelievable! " Of course, you just know that it was timed as a show of justification and support of the (very likely) overturn of affirmative action by the Supreme Court. AEI probably knew just when to run the story - I am sure there is ample communication between AEI and the White House. Many of AEI "regulars" are also in the stable of another propaganda outlet called Leading Authorities. LA provides speakers on every occasion from a preselected pool to schools, media, etc. Bush is so happy with this slick set up that he provided them with an official blurb: To see it, go to http://www.leadingauthorities.com/whats_new/index.htm

So, how can AEI manage to disguise their noxious agenda? Here are some examples of AEI "packaging," from their list of AEI books:

"Reconstructing Climate Policy: Beyond Kyoto"
SOUNDS LIKE:: scholarly analysis of environmental/global warming issues written by scientists
WHAT IT REALLY IS: An anti-Kyoto spin job couched in "intellectualese"written by two lawyers

"Generation of Trust: How the U.S. Military has Regained the Public Confidence since Vietnam"
SOUNDS LIKE: an overview of Military reforms and public outreach since the Vietnam Era
WHAT IT REALLY IS: A hawkish diatribe extolling the virtues of propaganda while bashing Baby Boomers for their lack of trust in the government. This screed advocates the use of the media, including movies, as a way to promote unquestioning trust in the military and all other government institutions. Here's an excerpt from the book description by AEI editors:

"Relying upon extensive polling data, The Generation of Trust explores the "generation" of trust in the military that has taken place since the end of the Vietnam War...[the authors] consider the "persuasion," or careful use of advertising, movies, and the news to portray the military's improved performance and professionalism in the best light.The Generation of Trust is an important and illuminating study of how the military gained and sustained the public trust and also how other institutions--including federal government as well as law, medicine, education, and religion--can emulate the success of the military in improving its public image."

"Making Tort Law: What should be Done and Who Should Do It"
SOUNDS LIKE: (re: synopsis on blurb page) a call for tort reform aimed at better protecting individuals.
WHAT IT REALLY IS: A call for legislation that would sharply restrict or eliminate the right of Americans to sue anyone, from negligent corporations to even drunk drivers: From the synposis: "[the authors] contend that automobile and other nonbusiness-related accidents should be eliminated from the tort system."

"Inequality and Tax Policy"
SOUNDS LIKE:: A look at how lower income Americans, and thus esp. minorities, shoulder too much of the tax burden.
WHAT IT REALLY IS: A case for reducing taxes on high-income entrepreneurs (ie, Ken Lay types).

"Privacy in Perspective"
SOUNDS LIKE: An examination of the problem of retaining privacy in today's information age

WHAT IT REALLY IS: An elaborate argument that attempts to show that giving up privacy and allowing your information to be freely bought and sold is actually good for you because it's good for corporations.

"Regulations that Repress"
SOUNDS LIKE: an examination of regulations that thwart freedom
WHAT IT REALLY IS: An attempt to use blacks and other inorities as a front to overturn regulations that protect workers. This book actually has the arrogance to make the case that regulations like minimum wage, maximum hours, and occupational licensing laws are JUST LIKE THE JIM CROW LAWS. I kid you not. The writer, David Bernstein, is from George Mason University - seems that George Mason is maintaining a stable full of rightwing "experts" these days, most of them Jewish. I heard a George Mason U guy on C-SPAN named Katz this AM being used as an Arab history/politics expert (with a strong pro-Israeli slant, no less). Can you imagine how the rightwing Jewish folk would scream if C-SPAN had a militant Arab on as an expert on Israeli history/politics?)

As the total epitome of the AEI mindset, since their man Bush took office, they have (second year running) held a special "Earth Day" event. This event consists of having speakers bash environmental regulations and extoll the virtues of how great things are in the environment these days. This year, a guy with the Weyerhauser lumber empire spoke on forest conservation....with a straight face, even.